Water is Wet but What Am I? Also Wet (A Song by Annie DiRusso)
PHOTOS BY CHARLOTTE STRAZIS
CREATIVE DIRECTION + WORDS BY ALLYSON J.L. CLAYTON
Whatever you are,
I’m covered in it.
Out of everything that is or can get wet, Annie DiRusso’s new single, is positively dripping. Doused, soaked, completely drenched in that specific angst of a lovesick poet in love (or in lust). It’s a song so scrumptious, she threw a whole release party for it with Dollhouse Chicago — a DIY event organizer.
Walking up to the venue, very accurately named “The Attic”, Charlotte and I were ready to dive into the chaos. Water balloons in hand, we went up the three flights of stairs to the actual attic of this house where the show would be held later that evening. I felt immediately transported to a time I wasn’t physically sentient for, having visions of all the sweaty bodies that were about to rock their hearts out — not a phone in sight. I was so excited.
House shows are innately intimate and their often small capacity lends itself to giving in, surrendering to the circumstances, to the sweat, to the too-closeness, to the music. And seeing an artist you already love and have been listening to for years at a house show, along with a hundred plus other people who similarly know every single word and ad-lib is a uniquely liberating experience.
“If you’re a pitcher of water, I’m the kitchen floor
A few slippery fingers and I’m all yours
If you’re a pool, I’m a reckless kid running on the tile
Confident that I won’t fall in, then slipping every time”
Inspired by the (I’m so sorry) moist nature of this song, we wanted to get as wet as possible, but on film and at a music venue. Then, we thought of the end credits of the hit classic movie Booksmart and over FaceTime, a light bulb went off over both mine and Charlotte’s heads and the rest was history.
“Doing my best to stay dry
But everything’s wet”
I first discovered DiRusso’s music while scrolling on TikTok at the end of 2020 — immediately captured by her tasty lyricism and hooked by her brazenness. She was teasing a new song, now affectionately known as “Nine Months,” and people were starting to trend the part of the song where she sings, “the first thing you said the night we met is I was beautiful//And you were right—” stopping the second verse slightly short, effectively cutting off a rebuttal from whoever deigned to challenge her beauty later in the song. If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I love when women —so, I was in.
Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing DiRusso absolutely flourish and continually grow as she has toured with Samia, Declan Mckenna, and, currently, Briston Maroney, as well as having a solid headline tour under her belt. Her live show only gets better and grungier and more pure rock-and-fucking-roll the every time I get to see her.
"This is actually already the best night of my life, so…."- DiRusso after opening with her hit “Comin’ Soon” last Friday in The Attic.
After gently asking for water over the mic, Annie Dirusso and her band start playing an unreleased song called “Good Ass Movie.” A song that sounds straight out of a 90s garage where your older, much cooler, sister is practicing to play the prom with her friends (can we call it Pink Slip-core?).
As part of the song, she introduces her band. “On my right we have ANNIE DIRUSSO (Lily Belle Govrik) on Bass. Annie’s favorite movie is Ratatouille. We have ANNIE DIRUSSO (Giselle Bouclé) on drums tonight. Annie’s favorite movie is Black Swan. And I’ve got ANNIE FUCKING DIRUSSO (Eden Joel) on guitar tonight, y’all. Annie’s favorite movie is [something about a zoo? to be quite frank, I can’t make out what she said here but I bet it was awesome]. And my name is ANNIE DIRUSSO (true) and my favorite movie is Get Smart starring Steve Carrell.”
It never fails to impress me how much that bit builds the excitement in the crowd and in myself. It’s so sick.
After playing “Legs”, “Nine Months”, “Don’t Swerve”, “Hybrid” (my personal all-time favorite Annie song) and some other Annie DiRusso classics, she said over the mic “we are here for a reason….and it’s to celebrate a song…I have a feeling it’s about to get a lot wetter in here.” The crowd goes wild as the self-acclaimed Daughter of Poseidon launches into “Wet”, the song of the seas, if you will.
“Dip my toes in, watch you go in
Want all of it, yeah, I want in
Take off my T-shirt and leave it with yours
I’m coming back in the morning
Whatever you are, I’m covered in it
Doing my best to stay dry”
The wooden floorboards moved under my feet as everyone jumped around and Sassy, the event’s organizer, squirted the crowd with water to cool us down, we all scream-sang every word together and Lily Belle even crowd surfed — it was awesome.
During a technical difficulty, we played the “Wet vs Dry” game that Annie has been playing at shows and online. Cars 2 is damp, Cheetos are dry, Rugby is, of course, wet, and Chicago is “dripping, soaking wet.”
After everything was settled, Annie and Band went BACK into “Coming Soon”. For the first verse, I sang along with a quizzical look on my face, convincing myself they forgot they opened with that song, but at the end they went straight back in for round THREE and I finally caught up. In my notes I wrote, “coming soon x2????? …….x3????”
"People are saying, “Coming Soon”, third times a charm…” and so it was! We ended the night moshing to DiRusso’s arguably most popular song, unless you are ever at one of her headline shows where every single song has already gone platinum in all of our cars.
She ends the show by saying, “ I can’t even say thank you enough for being here. I’ll remember this forever.”
And so will we <3
