| This Thread Is a Green Street | |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | The Innocence Mission |
| Album: | Midwinter Swimmers |
| Label: |
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| Producer: | The Innocence Mission |
| Prev Title: | The Brothers William Said |
| Prev Year: | 2020 |
"This Thread Is a Green Street" is a single by American alternative band The Innocence Mission, released as the first single from their thirteenth studio album Midwinter Swimmers on September 3, 2024. The song was written by Karen and Don Peris, with Karen also creating an animated music video for the song.
The song was written by Karen Peris alongside her husband Don Peris. It is the only song on Midwinter Swimmers to be co-written by Don, as Karen was the sole composer of the rest of the album.[1] Karen said the lyrics of "This Thread Is a Green Street" were inspired by the "transportive quality of scenes we might come upon in the natural world, or even in everyday objects", saying that "a sewing thread when I'm mending something could remind me of a street map." She elaborated that she was "envisioning the landscape as a world of doorways that might allow us to locate memory or to be nearer in some way to people we miss."[2] Karen related this lyrical concept to the recording of the song, saying that during the recording the band were seeking to "find the half-remembered beauty of sing-alongs of our 1970s childhoods. There's a search in recording that goes on being elusive, in a good way."[2]
"This Thread Is a Green Street" was issued as the first single from Midwinter Swimmers, as a one-track digital download and streaming single on September 3, 2024.[2] [3] That same day, a "hand-stitched" animated music video was released, directed by Karen.[1] [4] BrooklynVegan described the video as Karen using "ideas of sewing, stitching together backgrounds from maps, cloth swatches as the world of doorways and a photo of the 1964 World's Fair taken by her father. There are people moving through them, along with lyrics that appear as diagrammed sentences. It's a video that is as evocative of that early-'70s feel Peris describes – not unlike what she imagined on 2021 solo album A Song Is Way Above the Lawn – and you could imagine this as part of a PBS children's series back then."[2]
BrooklynVegan called the song "gorgeous".[2] Stereogum said the song "casts a dreamy, pastoral spell",[1] while Goldflakepaint said the song was "Subtly captivating, Karen's voice a dewy fog on a bright morning, it feels both gleaming and like something unearthed, glitter in the soil."[5] Paste listed it as one of the best songs released that week,[6] as did Pitchfork.[7]
Credits adapted from the description section of the song's official YouTube music video.[8]