Southern hospitality sets its own kind of trap: The worst part of being told “bless your heart” is being unable to say “go fuck yourself” right back. On Wednesday’s new song, “Elderberry Wine,” Karly Hartzman is drowning in the apple-bobbing barrel, suffocated by small-town life. “Sometimes in my head I give up and/Flip the board completely,” she sings, only to cut herself off: “But everybody gets along just fine.” You suspect she wants to scream: I’m not getting along fine at all!
With creaky pedal steel and MJ Lenderman’s tender fingerpicking, “Elderberry Wine” may be the straight-up prettiest song Wednesday have ever made, something akin to a dusty family heirloom. Even Hartzman’s voice has a newfound lilt that’s a little bit Iris DeMent, a little bit Hope Sandoval. But all that prettiness is a “long con,” as she puts it. Since the release of 2023’s Rat Saw God, Hartzman and Lenderman privately—then publicly—split up, and earlier this year Lenderman said that he’d no longer tour with the band. Lines like “Your eyes are the green of tornado sky” and “Said I wanna have your baby/’Cause I freckle and you tan” now flash out like sharpened shivs. That sweet elderberry wine will leave you with a hell of a hangover.