With wah wah guitars, shiny keys, and a strong rhythm section switching through time signatures, “Countdown” speaks of someone anxiously waiting for the end of the world, fearing that they might mess it all up and be late. While this anticipated apocalypse is never explicitly referred to, and is up to interpretation, the idea of counting down paired with the language of destroyed buildings, torn shirts, and D-Day seems to imply war and weapons of mass destruction as at least a factor in the downfall of humanity. The studio version was played by Alex Brettin (bass/electric piano/synthesizer), Cavs (drum kit 1/drum kit 2/bongos), Lucas (Mellotron/electric piano) and Stu (“wah wah guitar”/vocals/Mellotron) and released from Sketches of Brunswick East (on August 18th, 2017) and has the unique distinction of being the only Sketches song mixed by Alex Brettin. The album cover references the song with the rubble of buildings being a prominent part of the art.
A music video for “Countdown” was released on September 20th, 2017. The video features hand drawn 2D animation by Jason Galea featuring a psychedelic Rube Goldberg machine which leads to a car crashing into 253 Lygon Street, better known at the time as Flightless HQ. A limited edition book containing every drawing from the video was made by Jason Galea and sold in January of 2018, according to Galea’s Big Cartel store page. The drawings were done over sixty-four days, starting on July 17th and ending on September 19th. The video version features a different mix, with a noticeably different ending where the song slows down with a distorted crash.
The earliest known performance of the song was on 2017-09-24 at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. The song appeared at the end of the set next to “Rolling Stoned” and was played with members of Mild High Club who were opening for the band at the time. The following night, the song appeared in the same spot, also featuring Mild High Club. The song’s final appearance was on the next night at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville. No other performances of the song are known to exist, making it a very rare song in the band’s repertoire.