Song · Warpaint
“Undertow” by Warpaint
From the album The Fool (2010)
“Undertow” by Warpaint appears on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 2010 and 2019. It was first released in 2010 on the album The Fool. Its best result is #100 on the WXPN Year in Review: Top 100 Songs of 2010. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #561 indie & aaa song of 2010 and #6,610 indie & aaa song of all time.
"Undertow" was the song Warpaint picked to launch their debut album, The Fool, with Rough Trade releasing it in 2010, and it grew out of a bass line Jenny Lee Lindberg and guitarist Theresa Wayman were working up together. When Wayman started singing the words of Nirvana's "Polly" over it, the band passed on doing a cover and wrote lyrics of its own; Lindberg calls the result a bit of a tribute to Kurt Cobain, even if the two songs sound nothing alike.
Warpaint wrote it and produced and recorded it with Tom Biller, with Nina Walsh engineering and Andrew Weatherall on the mix, and it has a tidal pull that earns the title. It got a warm reception and made the UK's independent singles and breakers charts, and Lindberg's sister Shannyn Sossamon, a former Warpaint drummer, directed the video.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 100 | WXPN Philadelphia, PA | WXPN Year in Review: Top 100 Songs of 2010 | 100 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 458 | KEXP | KEXP Listeners' Favorite Songs of All Time | 627 |
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