Night Teacher Debuts "Past Life," an Enchanting Exploration of Home, Identity, and Change - Atwood Magazine

      Night Teacher's captivating track "Past Life" is a warm, gritty journey through heartbreak, impermanence, and self-exploration. It serves as a heartfelt inner contemplation from her forthcoming sophomore album, ‘Year of the Snake,’ skillfully blending elements of distance and closeness, as well as past and present.

      Stream: “Past Life” – Night Teacher

      “What’s the longest you’ve gone without wanting anything?”

      This seemingly straightforward question is delivered by Night Teacher's Lilly Bechtel in "Past Life," akin to a challenge, a revelation, and a pathway opening up. Against a backdrop of wavering guitar and a comforting, rhythmic beat, the line lingers, functioning both as an invitation and an accusation, as though she addresses both someone else and herself simultaneously. It marks a moment of connection tinged with disconnection, intimacy overshadowed by distance. The song embarks from that transitional space where yearning halts and self-identity feels ambiguous, gradually unfurling into a broader narrative.

      What follows is a vivid tapestry of desire and sorrow: “Past Life” encapsulates the unsettling detachment of heartbreak and transience – the way one can lose the essence of who they are, even while a fragment of themselves keeps track. Penned amidst borrowed beds and alien kitchens, the song articulates that distance with rawness, rhythm, and biting self-awareness, revolving around the refrain, “In a past life I was a human being,” until it takes on the dual meaning of both chant and incantation. As it concludes, Bechtel guides us to a gentler realization – to locks that click, stairs that creak, and the sound of someone beloved approaching – revealing that "home" can manifest as a small, undeniable comfort.

      Desire rises like snow

      on a neighborhood trampoline

      with a congregation of deer slumbering beneath.

      What’s the longest you’ve gone

      without wanting anything?

      What’s the longest you’ve gone

      without wanting?

      Address unlisted, yet I'm still present

      just until I figure out

      who I am at the sink,

      the words I say that I don't mean,

      who I imagined I’d become by now.

      Atwood Magazine is excited to debut “Past Life,” the second single from Night Teacher’s upcoming sophomore album, Year of the Snake, set to release on October 31 via First City Artists. Following the album's opener (and lead single) “Never Better,” celebrated for its cheeky, lighthearted exploration of the challenges of constant self-improvement, “Past Life” swaps humor for nostalgia, blending Bechtel’s honest, cathartic lyrics with a gritty, unconventional soundscape created alongside long-time collaborator and producer Matt Wyatt. It stands out in a record rich with themes of change, vulnerability, and the remarkable ways we find our way back to our own essence.

      “I wrote this song during a time full of turmoil, impermanence, and sorrow,” Bechtel shares with Atwood Magazine. “I was navigating a tough breakup and frequently moving, often staying at other people's homes and wandering through unfamiliar neighborhoods. I felt a robotic detachment from myself and others. I was searching for a sense of home and contemplating its meaning.”

      “A few years back, I consulted a Shaman who recounted a detailed tale about one of my past lives. While the story was fascinating and surreal (apparently, I was a queen who poisoned my husband's mistress), I often thought I would have been just as captivated if she had merely told me that I once existed as a human being.”

      “I have always been intrigued by the peculiar, small miracle of sensing our disconnection from ourselves, as even the awareness of this distance indicates that we understand who we are. How do we recognize when we’re absent, and who calls us back? I believe there exists a power or sanctity within us that yearns for our return to a sense of life that feels like home. My experience, and what I aim to express by the song's conclusion, is that coming home needn’t be a grand, dramatic event. Sometimes, it can be as simple as the comforting sensation of a loved one climbing the stairs to see you.”

      In a past life

      I was a human being

      in a past life

      I was a human being,

      but somewhere I lost the thread,

      somewhere I lost the thread,

      or was it merely the feeling?

      Was it always just the—

      That closeness emanates from “Past Life,” as Bechtel’s voice oscillates between tender vulnerability and poignant assertiveness, each line serving as reflection on how memory, yearning, and the body’s subtle cues can guide us back to our true selves. The refrain – “In a past life I was a human being” – transforms into both a mantra and an inquiry, its repetition exploring the space between our past identities, the present self, and our ongoing evolution.