Premiere: Pikelet's new song 'Wealthy/Worthy' is about queer self worth and survival

Arts

Mar 27

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You may have seen the adage “booked and busy” splashed across an Instagram caption or said to you by a friend during a particularly hectic week. In a world where your value is determined by how much money you have, working hard in the pursuit of eventual wealth is positive. What isn’t positive is the hamster wheel many find themselves on, where working 40+ hours a week doesn’t bring you wealth, and how it’s hard to hold onto your worth when that wealth doesn’t arrive.

Enter Pikelet aka Evelyn Morris, the experimental singer-songwriter from Australia with 12 years of writing and performing under their belt. ‘Wealthy/Worthy’ is the first release before their final album, and it’s about how feeling worthy or being wealthy is often beyond our reach. “I can’t remember a time I felt worthy,” Pikelet sings forlornly, before admitting “and yet that person still sitting there telling me they love me.”

Despite this love, the song invokes that feeling of anxiety and despair. Ping-ponging synths and looped distorted voices make the song sound like someone on the verge of collapse, of being at the end of their rope, emotions spilling messily on the floor. The accompanying video mirrors the claustrophobic sound of the song, layering clips of plants over Pikelet dancing.

Pikelet had this to say about the song over email: “Wealthy/worthy is a song about the ways in which our survival as queer people is influenced by white capitalist patriarchy. I wrote the song two years ago at a time when my mum was struggling with housing issues (thankfully she's in government housing now) which is incredibly common for women over 60 in Australia. I was struggling to exist as myself in the world, and wasn't able to keep my life together in a way that meant I could support her in any meaningful way.”

Watch the video above, and look out for Pikelet’s final album “Goodbye” in 2019 via Baby Race Records.

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Mo Wilson is a writer and sometimes DJ living in Brooklyn. He also throws indie rock/punk shows with the booking collective Booked By Grandma and loves plastic jewelry. You can find him on Twitter @sadgayfriendx and Instagram at @djgaypanic

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