Pleuras are membranes surrounding our lungs to hold pleural fluid, a substance that allows us to breathe easily and to our best ability. The song “Pleura” is the first of two Joey-led songs on L.W. and it comments on the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by world leaders, in this case focusing on former United States president Donald Trump. Joey depicts the spread of misinformation by Trump to his followers through cult-like language that portrays the infection of COVID as a test of dedication to their political messiah. The debacle is reduced to being about rights or bodily autonomy for the followers, with the line from the final verse ringing out: “I exercise my right to die.”
The lyrics also present the death as in service of ‘the necromancer’ — a vague figure who may represent pharmaceutical companies who make record profits, or those within the propaganda machine who are given new statistics to play with, thereby being able to further influence their followers.
Musically, the song is built on an odd time signature, alternating between bars of 7/8 and 8/8, and is heavier than anything thus far on the album, although this is balanced out by calm sequences with flute and whispery vocals from Stu.
The first connection to the song was established in July of 2020, when Joey (under his solo project Bullant) released the single for “German People.” The b-side to the song was titled “Orange Baby,” a phrase used in the lyrics of “Pleura.”
Two demos of “Pleura” have been made available. The first appeared on Demos Vol. 5: Music To Think Existentially To and is a slower but more compact version of the song. It’s entirely instrumental with a shorter intro, and added intro sections throughout that do not appear on the final version. The second demo from Demos Vol. 6: Music To Burn Money To is shorter, features the same intro heard in the first demo and shifts the first chorus into the “necromancer” section. This demo features the final song’s bridge, unlike the first demo. The studio version was played by Ambrose (harmonica/percussion), Cavs (drums), Joey (vocals/guitar/synthesizer) and Stu (guitar/bass/flute/vibraphone/vocals/organ). It was recorded by Stu and Cavs, and mixed by Stu and Joey. It was released as the third song on L.W. on February 26th. 2021.
In January of 2021, the band sent out their tenth Gizzymail newsletter. While it mostly discussed bootleg releases, it contained a photo of Ambrose with no eyebrows and what looked to be a new face. The caption read “Our boy amby got a face transplant, thoughts?” On February 1st the band uploaded a low resolution photo of Joey wearing a clear plastic face mask with the caption “Bradley Jr” to their Instagram page, followed by a photo of Ambrose with a similar appearance captioned “Hambrose.” On February 6th another post featured a new picture of Cook with the caption “Pipe-Craig.” Four days later they uploaded three images featuring Cavs, Stu and Lucas with the same look. On the 17th there was a final Instagram post, this time a video of the band in their studio without anything obscuring their faces. The caption read “Making a music video today. it’s coming out tonight.” The music video for “Pleura,” directed by John Angus Stewart, would be released that night alongside a single and the announcement of L.W..
The images of the band from the 1st, 6th and 10th were cropped images from the single’s cover, while the video showed the band performing the song in the studio with a camera on each member. In Gizzymail 12, Stu wrote “This was honestly a massive challenge and really fun and funny. We filmed / recorded / edited / mixed / mastered / uploaded / released this in 24 hours hahaha.”
While never confirmed, there’s been some speculation regarding the masks. Based on the fact that the previous L.W. singles had covers with art taken from their respective music videos, it seems that “Pleura” originally had a completely different video featuring the band in front of a green screen post-face transplant. A print featuring shots of the music video was sold by PHC Films in late 2021.
“Pleura” was debuted at the band’s first post-lockdown show on 2021-02-23 at the Croxton Park Hotel in Naarm (Melbourne), and saw performances at seven other microtonal shows that year. It returned in 2022 and has remained in their roster since. Typically, the song is played as a standalone track and remains close to the studio version.