The most memorable songs have often lived through a few lives before reaching listeners in its final form. “I Miss That Feeling” is the second taste of Tennis' (Denver based husband and wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley) upcoming EP We Can Die Happy. It is a breezy indie pop track that effortlessly opens the floodgates of nostalgia. Its production evokes the harmonic simplicity of 70s studio pop, as Moore dwells on a memorable and pleasurable feeling that seems to elude her now: "I miss that feeling/ Flicker hot and hovering/ Like my own discovering/ Eagerly, tenderly". Her delicate and breathy vocal delivery easily distracts from the verses that suggest something more sinister ('Flicker spread into an itch/ Into a burn, into a twitch') and clinical ('Recorded by the needle of an EKG') is on her mind.
Moore revealed that she was keenly aware of this slipperiness in perception: "The idea for the song came to me after I noticed the way that certain physiological aspects of anxiety could be read as feelings of pleasure when presented as a list, without context". The song was originally intended for inclusion in the duo's fourth LP , Yours Conditionallytheir first self-written and self-recorded LP. Instead of becoming the focal point of their follow-up EP, the song remained decidedly difficult to pin down, causing far more anxiety that it appears to contain. In an artistic decision that echoes Florence + the Machine's "Breaking Down", Moore decided to cast her mental condition as a friend, instead of a foe:
"In the final days of our deadline, feeling enormous pressure, I had a panic attack. Even in the middle of hyperventilating, I thought spiraling into anxiety over a song about anxiety was oddly fitting. Very me. In the end I settled on a kinder approach. I made the minor chords major; I softened things. I made the song a love letter to my constant companion rather than a denunciation of it."
