smallways. drop second single WHAT I'M DOIN'
Following the confrontational questioning of ‘KNOW WHERE?’, smallways. return with their second single, ‘WHAT I’M DOIN’’, a far more volatile and unfiltered escalation.
KNOW WHERE? asked what direction we’re heading in, WHAT I’M DOIN’ abandons the question entirely. It captures the moment where questioning contorts. The song is a snap in tolerance.
It explores what happens when awareness doesn’t lead to change and instead builds pressure.
Internally, it manifests as helplessness, loss of control, and emotional exhaustion. Externally, that pressure mutates into resentment, rebellion, and disconnection from others. It’s a state of being both hyper aware and completely stuck, what many call a liminal state.
At its core, the track examines a collective condition: people moving through life without reflection, repeating patterns, following systems and expectations that feel fundamentally misaligned, yet continuing anyway.
There’s an assumption that hierarchy equals order, despite the visible chaos, exploitation, and suffering around us. We continue forward, without listening to those who are thinking, observing, and trying to speak on it, both in reflection, and real time.
The tension between knowing and still participating, becomes psychologically unsustainable and unbearable. Those who carry that awareness are often dismissed as negative, rather than heard as presenting an opportunity for change, something that ironically, longer term, is far more constructive and positive.
That dismissal, minimisation and misunderstanding, deepens the divide and intensifies disconnection with some. For others, it gives them validation in what they’re feeling, in that there are many of us struggling with these same things.
WHAT I’M DOIN’ reaffirms the clear shift within Part 2: BROKE BRAIN, the second half of smallways.’ two-part debut album. Where PART 1: MIND YOUR HEAD focuses on awareness and examination, BROKE BRAIN documents what that awareness without change, does to a person over time.
If the first single KNOW WHERE? introduced the question, WHAT I’M DOIN’ is the reaction. It’s more aggressive. More urgent. Less patient. It’s a warning. When people feel unable to act on what they know, something eventually gives. Something changes within.
As with all smallways. releases, the band don’t separate themselves from what they’re critiquing. This isn’t directed outward from a distance; it’s an expression from within the same systems and pressures.
This isn’t observational. This is lived.
