Rocks Lyrics – Dry Cleaning | from “Secret Love”

Dry Cleaning’s third swing, Secret Love, is barreling toward us like a freight train through fog—out January 9, 2026, via 4AD—and “Rocks” is that jagged pebble underfoot, a three-minute gut-punch of spoken-word grit that’ll have you questioning every solid thing you thought you knew.

This cut, slotted as track eight on the 11-deep set, is Dry Cleaning doing what they do best: weaponizing the mundane into something mythic. Florence Shaw’s deadpan delivery—half poetry slam, half corner-shop rant—unfurls over the band’s taut post-punk chassis, all wiry guitars from Tom Dowse and Lewis Maynard’s basslines that slink like alley cats, backed by Nick Buxton’s no-nonsense drums. Produced by the wizardly Cate Le Bon (yeah, that Cate Le Bon, fresh off her own genre-bending spells with Deerhunter and Wilco), it’s got an extra layer of sonic sleight-of-hand: subtle psych flourishes and reverb that make Shaw’s surreal snapshots (“residual pop rocks in the mouth of your cab driver,” or whatever twisted gem she’s unearthed this time) land like confessions from a dream logic trial.

Thematically, it’s peak Dry Cleaning—love’s quiet erosions, miscommunications that fester like unturned stones, self-doubt polished into sharp edges—turning everyday debris into a meditation on what sticks when everything else crumbles. No lead single spotlight yet, but early previews leaked via the band’s Insta have fans buzzing about its rawer edge, a notch moodier than Stumpwork’s sprawl.

Secret Love? It’s their boldest leap yet, a “career-defining statement” per the press kit, clocking in around 40 minutes of that signature art-rock unease laced with Le Bon’s touch—think warped samples and live-wire tension across cuts like opener “Hit My Head All Day,” the fruit-bearing ache of “Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit,” blood-soaked “Blood,” idiot-proof “Evil Evil Idiot,” and closers “I Need You” and “Joy” that promise cathartic release. The concept orbits those hidden affections we bury deep—friendships that bloom into something unspoken, the body-mind manipulations Shaw’s long toyed with—recorded in a Welsh studio haze post their 2022 tour grind. No rigid narrative, just 11 portals into the absurd heart of being human, with that lineup (Shaw, Dowse, Maynard, Buxton) tighter than ever, folding in Le Bon’s outsider gaze for a sound that’s less brittle than before, more incantatory.

The London quartet’s at that enviable cusp—post-Stumpwork’s Mercury Prize nods and sold-out stateside jaunts, they’re ditching the hype for hushed reinvention, Shaw’s art-curator wit evolving from laundry-list surrealism to something almost tender. Fresh off intimate “out-store” gigs teasing Cruise Ship Designer (their November single with that bonkers Michael Flatley dance vid), Secret Love feels like the exhale after two albums of held breath: proof Dry Cleaning aren’t just surviving post-punk’s revival—they’re quietly rewriting it.

Dive into the Rocks lyrics below and unpack its raw narrative. Don’t miss other Secret Love tracks for more of Dry Cleaning’s surreal post-punk unease.