It’s 2018 and if you’re not angry at something, you’re doing it wrong. With 7.6 billion people on the planet, each with differing views and opinions, combined with the unceasing scrawl of twitter, means we’re bound to get ourselves into the occasional donnybrook or worse. These days it’s questionable whether we get things more right than wrong. “Helpless” is the return single from Roxy and the Underground Soul Sound; an R&B lament of these tragedies that have become an almost daily occurrences.
“I wrote the song because I was becoming so mad with all the awful things happening in the world and how it seemed it was one thing after another,” says Roxy of the Underground Soul Sound. “I figured, well… I’m going to use my voice to express how upset and mad I am. I wanted to use headlines to show that all these things happening are affecting everyone in different ways.”
The headlines that fill the video’s retro vibe are a solid reminder of why we can’t have nice things. Most of us are busy bickering in the back seat while the car is being driven by a madman who won’t stop pointing out all the dumpster fires he’s started, as we’re all careening off the road. In the meantime we’re being made to feel personally responsible for every straw in the ocean, since the oil was inevitably pulled from there in the first place thanks to some government subsidy. I don’t remember voting for that, but that’s just how democracy goes these days.
Still, as a species we seem to have forgotten some of the basic dos and don’ts. Don’t lie to people, don’t steal from them, don’t abduct and murder indigenous women, respect the environment… Obviously, we can and should be doing better.
“Some of the headlines, of course, are really heavy and I wanted to it to be clear that we should all be standing up and fighting with one another to make a change,” explains Roxy, in a way that sounds, hopefully, more optimistic than not.
Roxy says that the song, as might be expected from anyone with access to social media these days, grew out the disheartening barrage we’re all regularly assailed with.
“It was just seeing all these videos of racism and sexual assault cases that were outrageous and that it just seemed that I was okay that these things were happening to people. The violent attacks happening for no reason such as school shootings or people be targeted because they’re a woman or they’re a different colour.
You can see that people are protesting more and more to make a change. It’s going to take time, in my opinion. I just hope sooner than later. It seems that history is slowly repeating itself. That being said, I believe it can be changed if people keep standing up and making fight. We need to support each other, stop hating and start finding a common ground so we can move forward and above.”
To create the video and its distinctly retro vibe, Roxy and the Underground Soul Sound worked with director Gavin MacLean. They leaned into a look that harkened back to a time also charged with powerful social movements, which naturally lent itself to the band’s Motown/R&B vibe.
The video also serves as an unpleasant reminder of what we’ve experienced only recently, but unfortunately tends to be tilled over in our perpetually upheaved consciousnesses. Remember folks, if you weren’t deeply troubled by something today, then you probably weren’t listening.
On the bright side, “Helpless” also marks Roxy and the Underground Soul Sound‘s return to the studio. So at least we have an upcoming album to look forward to.