Sloan Treacy didn’t set out to write Pavement about anything in particular. The word came first. The meaning caught up later.
Somewhere between the poignant verses and the buoyant chorus, the song began to sound like someone holding back just enough to be polite until they couldn’t anymore.
The production moves like a tightrope. Guitar and synth lines play off each other without competing.
Backing drums ease in, then fade, letting Sloan’s vocal layers do the heavy lifting.
Her voice, delicate but unfazed, carries each lyric like she’s walking a familiar route and choosing not to look up.
“All the streets just look the same when you’re staring at the floor” doesn’t cry for help. It just tells you what it feels like to lose shape while trying to seem agreeable.
Mixed by Grammy-nominee Mark Needham and produced by Don Miggs, Pavement sits at the heart of Treacy’s second EP, was any of it real?, which threads together her move from Los Angeles to Nashville and a series of creative shifts that refuse to settle for neat conclusions.
It’s a song about the cost of being liked. Not in the big, dramatic sense, but in the quiet ways it happens. What else do you compromise when you keep your head down too long?
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Sloan Treacy Pavement Lyrics
So I’ll step on the lines and the cracks in the pavement
Don’t be shy
I don’t mind waiting
I hope you know it wasn’t all for the show
I’ll vandalize my honest statements
Apologize without hesitation
Cause I couldn’t handle if you ever said no
So I follow the script that I wrote
I don’t dare improvise
And I hope, and I hope, and I hope
That my hope won’t be my demise
Cause…
All the streets just look the same
When you’re staring at the floor
I know it’s hard to catch a break
Always knocking on people’s doors
What a sorry masquerade
What a sad excuse for a plan
What a daunting evident fate
Now I’m running in circles right where I stand
So I’ll search your face for an honest answer
The way you smile, the sound of your laughter
And I’ll paint a picture with watercolor lies
When did now become sooner or later?
When did trust become doing a favor?
Oh
Tell me how
And tell me now
Cause…
All the streets just look the same
When you’re staring at the floor
I know it’s hard to catch a break
Always knocking on people’s doors
What a sorry masquerade
What a sad excuse for a plan
What a daunting evident fate
Now I’m running in circles right where I stand
I caught a glimpse
Of a broken bridge
But I barely flinched cause I’ve been waiting for this chance
A hopeless dance
But here I am
Here I am
Cause…
All the streets just look the same
When you’re staring at the floor
I know it’s hard to catch a break
Always knocking on people’s doors
What a sorry masquerade
What a sad excuse for a plan
What a daunting evident fate
Now I’m running in circles right where I stand
Now I’m running in circles right where I stand