Throughout the months of April and May, Nashville-based indie-pop band The Wldlfe sent their fans on a mission to complete a 48-piece puzzle.
To start this project, the band mailed a few fans a unique photograph with a single word or phrase written on the back. They also started a countdown on their website to May 7th. Once fans started receiving their letters in the mail, they would send a picture of the front and back of the photograph to show what their unique piece was. Mine was the word “know,” numbered 40/48. I took it upon myself to keep track of everyone’s words in my notes app, and people would tag me in the chat to make sure I saw theirs when they got it.
Jansen Hogan, vocalist and lyricist, hinted to fans in The Wldlfe Discord server that the words were not in order, which threw us all for a loop. We were already trying to fill in empty spaces and create phrases with the words we had gotten, but once we were told they weren’t in order, we pretty much put that on hold until we got more words to work with. It was a long and grueling waiting game to get all of the words, since the band were mailing them a few at a time.
Throwing us off again, the band posted a video to social media showing the acronyms for their upcoming album’s track list. We all thought that the words from the puzzle pieces would be part of the song titles, but the band told us that it wasn’t the case (after we had already started frantically trying to decode the acronyms).
After we had all the pieces and knew that they were lyrics and not song titles, it was time to put them in order. A lot of people in the server had some great ideas for lines, some of which were confirmed to be correct by the band. We weren’t sure of the exact order until noon on Tuesday, May 7th, when the band officially announced that a single entitled “What If You Change?” will be released on May 17th. The teaser for the song was posted to social media, and we found out the official order of the words.
“I’ve lived enough life to know
That sometimes the good things go
So what if you say goodbye and
I’m left here all alone
“Forever” is just a word and
You say it all the time
But babe, I’ve been burned before so
What if you change your mind?”
“What If You Change?” is going to be The Wldlfe’s first release of 2024, coming after the late 2023 release of the deluxe edition of their latest album. The release of this song is highly anticipated by fans and the band alike who are all eager to get the next era of The Wldlfe started.
The single is available to pre-save on multiple streaming platforms here:
The Wldlfe - What If You Change? It officially comes out on May 17th.
“What If You Change?” by The Wldlfe, Out May 17th
by Abiageal Filon
May 10, 2024