The Waves Soundtrack Decoded by Director Trey Edward Shults, Song by Song

“Floridada” by Animal Collective

Trey Edward Shults: With “Floridada,” we jump into this dichotomy with the spinning camera. In that song, I believe the rapper is referencing Dadaism, art, and interconnectivity, and that felt a lot like our movie: interconnectivity between human beings. I hope the movie also feels like it’s very narrow, specifically Tyler’s subjective experience, and then Emily’s subjective experience, until at the end of each of their journeys the world kind of explodes out. 

For Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), this drastic mistake happens and then there’s the ripple effect of how it affects everybody, and for Emily, when she’s internally reaching this place of trying to heal and forgive, we can leave her point of view and live with these other characters because it’s gotten to that point. There is this interconnectivity between human beings that I thought that track spoke to, and then literally we are at the bridge of the song and we’re on a bridge, and the lyrics say, “Where’s the bridge that’s gonna take me home?” We slam into this movie, and then we’re going to go into the character’s home, not literally his home, but also just his home world, between school, home life, and friends. So it just felt like a beautiful entrance point. 

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