Molly

Some songs ease you in. "Molly" does the opposite. It is the first track on Palehound's debut album Dry Food, and it arrives with fuzzy, crackling guitars and a tone that critics have described as a biting takedown.^[3][5] Before the listener has a chance to settle, the album has already told them what kind of record this will be: quick, sharp, a little dangerous, and very much written by someone who has something to get off their chest.

What follows is an attempt to sit with that opening statement. The song's own words are best heard on the record itself, so this essay will describe rather than repeat them, and it will lean on the critical and biographical record around the song. Kempner has not, as far as published interviews show, offered a detailed public explanation of "Molly," so much of what follows is interpretation, offered as such.

Where the Song Came From

Palehound is the project of Ellen Kempner (they/them), who grew up in Westport, Connecticut, learned guitar early with lessons from their father, and recorded demos in GarageBand during high school.^[2] Those demos eventually reached Dan Goldin of the label Exploding in Sound.^[2] Kempner moved to New York City in 2012 to study music at Sarah Lawrence College, later dropped out, and relocated to Boston.^[2]

Dry Food was written in the wake of that upheaval. According to the album's reference entry, Kempner wrote the songs after leaving school, ending a relationship, and moving from New York to Boston.^[1] The record was made in October 2014 at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn with producer Gabe Wax, with Kempner writing every arrangement and playing every instrument except drums.^[1] It is eight songs long and runs under half an hour.^[1]

"Molly" was the lead single, released in June 2015 ahead of the album's August 14 release on Exploding in Sound.^[1][5] A 2016 UK reissue on Heavenly put it on a 7-inch with a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent" on the flip side, a choice that tells you something about the mix of bite and pop sensibility in Kempner's writing.^[1]

In a Boston Globe profile, Kempner described the period behind the album as one in which they felt defeated and stuck, and said they wanted to write honestly, without holding anything back. They kept only the eight songs that said what they wanted to say.^[4] That ruthless editing helps explain the album's focus, and it makes the choice of an opening track feel deliberate rather than incidental.

A Takedown with Teeth

The word reviewers reach for most often is "takedown." NPR's Mike Katzif called the song a biting one and noted its knotty, scorching riffs and deceptively intricate melodies.^[3] Consequence called it a fuzzy and crackling rocker.^[5] Another writer, covering a live session, framed the album's songs as being about a first major breakup.^[7]

Taken together, those impressions suggest a song aimed at a particular person, or at a particular version of a person, with real anger behind it. That is not the same as a simple insult. Anger in a good breakup song tends to be tangled up with attachment, with the lingering habit of caring about the very person you are tearing into.

This matters because it separates "Molly" from the revenge-song tradition. A revenge song wants a winner. A song like this one seems more interested in the moment right after the argument, when you realize that being right has not made you feel better. The album-wide mood supports that reading: Consequence described the song as echoing the record's themes of instability and uncertainty.^[5]

The Guitar as Second Narrator

Any account of "Molly" has to reckon with the playing. Reviewers consistently singled out Kempner's guitar work across the album, drawing comparisons to St. Vincent's Annie Clark, Elliott Smith, and Pavement.^[1][3] Paste highlighted the song's counter-melody riff and fuzzy power chords.^[1]

That counter-melody is more than decoration. When a vocal line and a guitar line move independently, the listener hears two minds at work: one speaking, one commenting. In an accusatory song, that second voice can sound like the thoughts the narrator is not saying aloud, or the doubt creeping in beneath the confidence. It is hard to prove this is intentional, but it is a useful way to hear why the song feels more complicated than its fuzz would suggest.

Kempner's training also shows. Describing their classical and jazz guitar study at Sarah Lawrence, they told the Globe that it gave their hands a workout.^[4] The result is a rock song with unusually intricate construction, the kind of thing that sounds loose and messy on first listen and reveals its architecture on the fifth.

Growing Up Badly, or Growing Up Honestly

Reviewers have framed Dry Food as a doleful coming-of-age record, a portrait of Kempner's inner life in 2013 and 2014 that touches on isolation, anxiety, and emotional pain.^[1] NPR tied the lyrics to a messy breakup and to the difficult passage from youth into adulthood.^[3]

Read in that light, "Molly" is the album's first confrontation, and it plays like a young person testing their own voice. Few things mark the edge of adulthood as clearly as the first time you say something hard to someone and mean it. The song's scorched, urgent energy fits that rite of passage, and putting it first sets the record's central question: what do you do with feelings that are too big for the room you are in?

There is also a quieter theme of self-authorship. Kempner left school, left a relationship, and left a city, all within a short span. A debut album that opens with an unapologetic song is, among other things, a declaration that the person who made these choices intends to narrate them.

The Scene Around It

"Molly" arrived in the Boston and New York indie rock circuit of the mid-2010s, and critics placed it in that company. Stereogum noted a resemblance to the sound of Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz, who was Kempner's roommate at the time.^[1] The Globe noted comparisons to Boston-area bands but quoted producer Gabe Wax saying the record was meant to sound like Kempner, not like those peers.^[4]

That distinction is worth keeping. The record's reception was strong: Metacritic lists a score of 78 from 11 reviews, Pitchfork gave it 8.0, and Paste 7.8.^[1] Kempner also won New Artist of the Year at the 2015 Boston Music Awards.^[2] For a debut written in a period of personal disarray, that is a remarkable arc, and "Molly" was the song that led the way.

The Video and a Stranger Reading

In March 2016, a video for the song premiered on Stereogum. Directed by Lara Jean Gallagher and Brian Kinkley, it follows a small character called EggGuy, who is fried, served on a sandwich, and then affects the thoughts of whoever eats him, prompting reflections on the circle of life.^[6] The directors said they wanted to explore the frailty of life and described the song as having just the right amount of weird sweetness.^[6]

The video is a comic, almost anti-drug-PSA-style piece, and on the surface it has little to do with a breakup. But it offers a useful counterpoint. Where the song is personal and sharp, the video is absurd and gentle, and the directors' phrase about weird sweetness names something real in the music: underneath the bite, there is tenderness. The two readings do not cancel each other out. A song can be furious and affectionate in the same breath.

Other Ways to Hear It

Because Kempner has not fixed the song's meaning in public, other readings remain open. One is that "Molly" is less about a specific person than about a type of dynamic, a relationship in which one person's confidence leaves the other feeling small. Another is that the title name is partly a mask, a way of giving a broad feeling a human shape so that it can be argued with directly.

A third reading treats the song as self-address. Songwriters often write to others in order to talk to themselves, and a record born from feeling defeated and stuck^[4] could easily open with an argument that is at least half internal. None of these interpretations can be confirmed from the available sources, and the song is richer for supporting all of them.

Why It Still Lands

Part of the song's lasting appeal is its economy. It is the lead track on a 28-minute album, and it does not waste a second establishing its stakes.^[1] Part of it is the guitar writing, which rewards repeat listening. And part of it is the emotional honesty that Kempner described aiming for: no cards held back.^[4]

For listeners who came to Palehound later, through the softer, more open songwriting of albums such as Black Friday,^[2] "Molly" is a snapshot of where that journey began. The abrasive guitars and the guarded anger would later give way to broader explorations of the body, queer identity and friendship, but the commitment to telling the truth plainly is already here.

Conclusion

"Molly" is a song about the heat of a particular moment, and also a song about what it takes to speak up at all. It combines a sharp, knotty guitar line with a sense of hurt that never fully resolves into either contempt or forgiveness. That unresolved quality is the point.

As an opening statement for a debut album, it is hard to beat. It introduces a songwriter with a distinctive voice, a technical command of the guitar, and a willingness to be unflattering about their own emotional life. Listen once for the riffs, and again for the person behind them.