The original Tennis duo of Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley decided to expand their core surf pop sound for their sophomore album, Young & Old, by adding drummer James Barone to the band full-time and enlisting Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney to produce the set.
This was the first song written for the record. Moore found inspiration for it in a poem by William Butler Yeats, A Woman Young and Old in which a woman reflects on a lifetime's worth of memories. After hearing Riley's music for the song, she began to think of personal issues involved in being in a band such as dealing with critics and relationships. "I thought about how the suddenness of becoming a band and spending so much time on the road with others seemed to bring out the best and the worst in me. I thought a lot about human nature – mine, really, and the way it had been portrayed to me in my childhood," she told Rolling Stone. "I felt frustrated with the self-defeating conception of humanity I was presented with."
"I wouldn't have written a line of ["Origins"] if it hadn't been for Yeats," Moore added.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.