Please listen to this song before reading
From the beginning, it’s clear that Wake Me is not a conventional song. It starts with a slow guitar riff that accelerates until it gets to the song’s tempo, when the tap of a high hat brings the audience into Watchhouse’s first verse. Andrew Marlin’s soft, infectious voice tells us “like a rock that came rolling down a hill / I’ve been searching for something to kill ” (AZLyrics).
The first line is how Wake Me feels. This music takes you somewhere. The song’s rhythmic guitar walze along with its unconventional structure connotes an asymmetrical “rock” slowly dancing down a grassy knoll. The song is full of mandolin interjections and the pre-chorus is at one point followed by a verse. During the bridge, when Marlin says “but I’m in need of pleasant dreams” it seems like the “rock” is about to stop rolling; but when Watchhouse resumes for a repeat chorus, the audience realizes that the song has not ended (AZLyrics).
The second line, however, shows the sadder side of Watchhouse. The song’s tune may be melancholy but is mostly innocent, like a rock rolling down a hill. The soft flow of the song is juxtaposed, however, by the narrator’s feeling that sometimes the world is on top of him. The “rock’s” purpose in rolling is that it searches for something to “kill.”
Emily Frantz, Marlin’s wife, comes in and out of Wake Me “With harmonies so easy they sound like kitchen table talk” (“Watchhouse Press Page.”). The duo make up Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange) and Wake Me is a good representation of what they do. Watchhouse simultaneously tells stories and works to cultivate the vibe or feeling Frantz and Marlin feel they represent. It can be taxing for the pair, though, who tend to “[sing] soft songs about the hardest parts” of their lives (“Watchhouse Press Page.”). Marlin shared that sometimes being “paid to relive a lifetime of grievances and griefs onstage” can be too much.
As a reprieve, in early 2020, Frantz and Marlin left their child, Ruby, with Frantz’s mom and went on a trip to the Appalacians with new collaborator Josh Kaufman. The trio left “conceptions of how they had worked, recorded, or even sounded… in the past” (“Watchhouse Press Page.”). Soon after, when COVID hit, the couple got their first chance to stop moving since they were 21. In staying still, they got a chance to “sit with ourselves and set intentions” (Watchhouse. [watchhouseband].). The pair realized that they did not want to leave their sound “in the past.” Rather, they decided that their name, Mandolin Orange, was not reflective of what they had originally set out to do. The playful pun that is Mandolin Orange does not reflect the serious feeling Frantz and Marlin want to bring their audience. In April 2021, Marlin and Frantz announced that they were changing their band’s name from Mandolin Orange to Watchhouse, explaining that “Mandolin Orange was born out of my 21-year-old mind. The name isn’t what I strive for when I write, because it doesn’t match what I picture when I invite people into my songs… we have long been burdened by… our band name…” (Watchhouse. [watchhouse]).
Better Way, released in conjunction with Marlin and Frantz’s name change, is Watchhouse at their best. The song connotes a familiar feeling of melancholic bliss with an unconventional structure that “shifts slowly from a bluegrass trot into a spectral marvel… [that] frames a new future” (“Watchhouse Press Page.”). With their name change and release of Better Way, Marlin and Frantz made it clear where they’d been taking their listeners all these years.
The Watch House is located in Chesapeake Bay and is a reference to the biannual trips Marlin used to take there as a teenager. The House was calm, secluded, and beautiful, without any electricity. Marlin “would sit there, sans electricity, reveling in an admixture of silence and communion – thinking, looking, being… that was the Watch House, and that is the place Marlin & Frantz now aim to shape in Watchhouse” (Watchhouse. [watchhouse]). The serenity of The Watch House is the vibe Marlin and Frantz try to carry to their listeners. Place doesn’t have to be spacial. For example, one’s “home” can be with someone rather than in a certain location. For the pair, The Watch House is a place no longer tied to its spacial location in Chesapeake Bay; it is a feeling.
When he was young, Marlin found his sound at The Watch House, modeled after what the place made him feel. When he met Frantz, he got a chance to bring someone into that place. While together, they transformed The Watch House into the sound of their love and career. Marlin wrote their most recent album, Watchhouse, beside a crib while he cajoled Ruby to sleep. The Watch House is now a part of Ruby’s life too. Place isn’t necessarily linked to a location. That Watch House has become a part of Marlin, his wife, and millions of fans in the process.
Sources:
Watchhouse. [watchhouseband]. (2021, April 21). FRIENDS! Our band is now called
Watchhouse 
“Watchhouse Press Page.” Shore Fire Media, https://shorefire.com/roster/watchhouse.
“AZLyrics – Request for Access.” AZLyrics.com, ttps://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mandolinorange/wakeme.html.
Watchhouse. [watchhouse] [Spotify About] https://open.spotify.com/artist/2WqEbbet6L2ndAbvhRVb2S
“Mandolin Orange Change Name to Watchhouse.” Shore Fire Media, https://shorefire.com/releases/entry/mandolin-orange-change-name-to-watchhouse.
