You Keep Me Crawling

"After I had written it, I wasn't hungry for more. I felt like I was satisfied.”

The fifth song on The Gods We Can Touch album, You Keep Me Crawling, might be the song that hits me the most (on that album). Her shifts between the soaring power-outlets and soft vulnerability in this one always touches something within me - espesically in some parts of her lyrics:

But why does it make me feel like I am weak and small?
Why do I keep begging like the animal?
Maybe it's because I need to serve someone
…
But why do I make you feel like you are big and strong?
Why do you keep hunting like an animal?
Maybe it's because you need to own someone

Topics of abusive power isn’t something new in Aurora’s music, but the way such relationships is pictured here is impressive. I must say I find it a bit strange she don’t play it more often live. But - then again - her repertoire is getting quite large now, and it’s hard to please everybody’s wishes.

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Auroras album The Gods We Can Touch was originally planned to be released earlier than it was, but the somewhat¹ surprising and unexpected bloom of Runaway on TikTok made her postpone it a bit. No less than six years after Runaway’s release, 14 years after it was written, new warriors and weirdos was found and brought home as it peaked up to ubelievable 2.7 million daily streams on Spotify.

“Sometimes there are forces bigger than us, urging us to change our habits and plans. I just let the world go where it wants to and take my music where it wants to take it.”, Aurora said to Apple Music. As the sucess of Runaway made her album’s planned release a little difficult, Aurora embraced the situation and wrote two extra songs: Giving In To Love and You Keep Me Crawling. The latter is described as a song about powerplay and relationship dynamics. “I’d been trying to explain the soul of this album”, she said, “and when I made You Keep Me Crawling it felt like the last word. After I had written it, I wasn't hungry for more. I felt like I was satisfied.”

Aurora often states that her music is created from what she believe the world, or her warriors and weirdos, need at the moment. To me, she seems to be responding to energies that many of us can only sense faintly. The sudden explosion of Runaway shows us that art has its own journey and timing, much like a small dam that suddenly overflows to run for the main river's flow. The fact that this unexpected awakening led to the creation of two more songs only strengthen my belief in how deeply Aurora listens to the currents of life. As the true artist she is, she remains open, allowing her art to evolve naturally, capturing moments that otherwise might have slipped away.

That's a song i wrote very last minute. I had already finished my album and even sent it to mastering. It was completely finished, but then i wrote You Keep Me Crawling. It was originally named Bad Omens, but my record company thought it was too scary, so i had to change it to You Keep Me Crawling.

I think it's about the unbalanced power play in the world. You see it in so many different situations. You see it among people, you see it sometimes acted out between different races, in racism and inequality, you see it between teachers and their students, between preachers and their audiences, and between religion - organized religion and people of faith.

The way people use power - I think equippy cronies is about power - It's about many things, and this specific story people can also interpret the way they want, but it's inspired by power, and how - in the wrong hands - it can be so evil.

Aurora shows a faith in the power of spontaneity, and in that flow new stories are born, just as we see in You Keep Me Crawling and Giving In to the Love.

“I wrote ‘You Keep Me Crawling’ and ‘Giving In to the Love’ around the same time. I was just humming the chorus melody all day and I decided that it needed to be a song. It came like puke out of my mouth. It's kind of a happy accident of a child.”

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The weight of love and misused power

The theme of abusive relationships and misused power is recurring in Auroras music. We find it even from the very beginning, in the song Puppet that she recorded on her own before she got discovered by her management. Through the years we have also heard these theme in songs like It Happened Quiet, Churchyard and I Went Too Far.

In all of these songs, we find people caught up in manipulation, emotional control, or pressure from the society. They all tells a story of a someone who struggles under the weight of relationships where love, acceptance, or freedom feels out of reach. There's a powerful sense of yearning - and hope - that comes with a deep desire to escape, whether from another person, a damaging connection, or internal battles.

We have a saying here in Norway: The troll will burst if you shine some light on it. It means that pain will fade if you speak about it, and I believe that’s what Aurora aims to do with You Keep Me Crawling and her other songs that explore the feelings of being controlled by others. By shedding light on what is wrong and what is right, and addressing the emotional toll of misused power, she guides us toward the first steps of freedom - towards the light.

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Live perfomances

Scrolling through the Aurora setlists for 2022 and 2023 at Setlist.fm reveals that this is a less common song for Aurora to perform live. Out of the 68 shows recorded in 2022, and the 49 shows recorded in 2023, only those who attended the eight shows listed below had the pleasure of experiencing “You Keep Me Crawling” from the front of a stage:

• 27th of March 2022 - Setlist: Birmingham Town Hall, Birmingham, England (Live debut)

• 28th of March 2022 - Setlist: Newcastle University Student’s Union, Newcastle upon Tyne, England - This is the version I included above

• 29th of March 2022 - Setlist: SWG3, Glasgow, Scotland - (Click here for YouTube)

• 31st of March 2022 - Setlist: Olympia Theatre, Dublin Ireland - (Click here for YouTube)

• 1st of April 2022 - Setlist: Albert Hall, Manchester, England - (Click here for YouTube)

• 3rd of April 2022 - Setlist: O2 Academy Leeds, Leeds, England - (Click for YouTube)

• 5th of April 2022 - Setlist: O2 Academy, Brixton, London, England

• 6th of April 2022 - Setlist: O2 Academy, Brixton, London, England

Let me know if you have heard this one live, and if there is a show I have not found.

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Credits

• Song: You Keep Me Crawling

• Composer: Aurora, Magnus

• Producer: Aurora, Magnus

• Vocals: Aurora

• Piano/Organ: Magnus

• Synths: Magnus

• Drums: Magnus

• Percussions: Aurora, Magnus

• Strings/Violin/Cello: Magnus

• Guitars: Fredrik Svabo

• Mixing/Mastering: Magnus

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Community Spotlight

aurorawarriors.no on Instagram

This is a relatively new account on Instagram - a fan account dedicated to host and inform warriors about meet-ups and happenings in Norway. I include this here because I know many of the Warriors and Weirdos wish to come to Norway, and at the same time get to see her live and meet other fans.

auroraswarriors.no

A post shared by @auroraswarriors.no

If you are going to attend Aurora at Bergensfest in june 2025, there is already set in motion a meet-up for fellow Warriors and Weirdos. From the post:

To celebrate this glorious occasion we invite you all to the W&W Meet Up inside the festival grounds 14.06.25.

Her birthday happens to be the day after her appearance so yet another reason to meet up and celebrate her!

There will be activities, give aways and cake!

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Final words

Ok. I am going to leave it there. Let me know what you think of this song, and I love it if you have some information about it that I have missed. Until the next one:

My God! It’s a lot!
Rune

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Sources

• Apple Music. (2022, October 6). From Glassnote album: AURORA - The Gods We Can Touch on Apple Music. Rentry. Retrieved september 27, 2024 from https://rentry.co/t4tei

• FLUX FM. Aurora about the gods we can touch (album der Woche). Posted to YouTube by Zidreddin Zidron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmFgEeMzhvk&t=252s

• Majestic Detroit. (n.d.). Aurora presents the Gods We Can Touch Tour. Majestic Theatre. May 28, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2024, from https://www.majesticdetroit.com/event/11303325/AURORA+Presents+The+Gods+We+Can+Touch+Tour/

• Setlist.fm. (2024). Aurora Setlists. Retrieved from https://www.setlist.fm/search?artist=23c6eca3&query=Aurora

1. I say somewhat because there is much more to that story. I will write about this in my next newsletter 😊