Bear's Den - longhope, 2019

“We wanted to make an EP that felt intimate, nostalgic and felt united by the theme of winter. It was a chance between albums for us to work on and explore something more musically sparse and lyrically reflective, working with our longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Ian Grimble. The EP is a collection of songs united by a sense of what winter means to us. In all its beauty, sadness, stillness and its ability to transform and bring things back to life.”

Bear's Den - conversations with ghosts, 2019

“I wrote this while I was in Mexico. I was surrounded by Mexican culture and became fascinated in their perception of death with, for example, the Day of the Dead. I wanted to know more about it and read the book Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. The story is about a guy who goes back to his family’s town which had turned into a ghost town. In the story, you don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead because they’re all communicating with each other. Coincidentally, I’d read another book just before that one called Lincoln in the Bardo, which is set in a graveyard and follows ghosts who talk to each other. All these stories were going around in my head in Mexico came together in this one song.”

Bear's Den - napoleon, 2016

"I’ve never really talked about the lyrics of ‘Napoleon’. It’s a song about my mother who has struggled with an alcohol addiction for a long time and most recently has also been struggling with dementia. When clearing out and moving her into an assisted care home from her old house a few years ago now, I stumbled onto this old wooden pencil case that belonged to my grandmother, my mother’s, mother. It was clearly from back when she was a kid at school and she’d carved the words ‘it’s not too late to mend’ onto the pencil case and when i saw those words, I totally fell apart. It was like she was talking to us from beyond the grave or something and in seemingly such a difficult moment, she was out of nowhere saying something so intrinsically positive and fundamentally true."

Bear's Den - broken parable, 2016

"From start to end, this song is perfection. With excellent percussion, a very interesting electronic riff, and an unexpected melody on the choruses, I couldn’t find a moment of this song that warranted any criticism. The lyrics discuss loss and regret, providing an intimate look into the narrator’s insecurity."

Bear's Den - above the clouds of pompeii, 2014

Bears Den · Above The Clouds Of Pompeii

"'Above The Clouds Of Pompeii' is a song we first started playing in the back of a VW camper van on our first ever tour and we've played it live at every show we've ever played since. We're really excited to finally be able to share this song with people as it's one of the first songs we as a band all connected with and the song that our audiences have most connected with."

Bear's Den - isaac live, 2014

“It’s great to be playing in Cambridge again”, lead singer Andrew Davie tells the audience. I bet he says that to all the cities. An unfortunate tale unfolds about their last show at a different venue here in 2012, when a sound technician let the band get through a significant portion of their first song before switching the house sound on."

Bear's Den - isaac, 2013

"I believe Bear’s Den is so amazing because after listening to their songs on repeat for a few days, as one does when they discover new music that they love, I started finding connections between a few of their songs. Their songs are a bit ambiguous so I could just be making up connections and shaping them to fit with the music but if not, this band has managed to tell a complete story through at least four different songs which is so cool."

Bear's Den - agape, 2013

"The opening title track tells of the horror of contemplating life without this 'agape'."

Bear's Den - hiding bottles live, 2019

“Alcoholism explained as temporary or manageable, which created a strange dichotomy within those homes – two versions of the same family, one fighting to keep everything ‘normal’ and another private version, out of control."

Bear's Den - loneliness, 2023

"Heartrending and cathartic all at once, “Loneliness” is a poetic unburdening of painful, heavy emotion."

Bear's Den - only son of the falling snow, 2019

"I have always written about a single song in my posts. A song that I have found magic in, but this time I am writing about a broader work. “Bear’s Den” released this EP on December 6, 2019, titled, “Only Son of the Fallen Snow.” The title track was released a short time before the EP and I knew when I heard it, I would write about it, and then when I heard the other two, “The Star of Bethnal Green” and “Longhope”... I knew I would write about them too. All three songs are treasures of magical wonder. I couldn’t just write about one or two, I had to explore, ponder and extrapolate the magic from all three. A feat, ladies and gentlemen, yet to be accomplished on this lullaby of prose and magic. But this is right and perfect, because this release from Bear’s Den is right and perfect... aw the magic. Kev and Davie, I thank you..."

Bear's Den - the star of bethnal green live, 2019

"Lovely acoustic close harmonies live from BBC in Glasgow."

Bear's Den - the love we stole, 2014

"I wrote this song around the same time as I was writing 'Sahara Pts 1&2' and 'Writing On The Wall' from our last EP. Those three/four songs originally were all one giant song and I had to split them up for the sake of the band's sanity! There's a short story by Raymond Carver called Vitamins and the final line is "Things kept falling…" That line encapsulates how you feel when it seems your life is falling apart and to an extent I was in that place when I was writing this song."

Bear's Den - magdalene, 2014

"The song discusses the secretive institutions called Magdalene laundries (also known as Magdalene’s asylums), named after Catholic saint Mary Magdalene. The penitentiary work-houses were for “fallen women” and was run by Catholic nuns. Originally the institutions intended to help women out of prostitution and other bad situations, they evolved into sweatshops where women would be forced to live and work, unpaid, for the rest of their lives."

Bear's Den - dew on the vine, 2016

"There’s an intimacy about Bear’s Den’s music that cuts deeper than most. Lead singer and songwriter Andrew Davie tends to avoid the well-traveled roads of love and romance; his introspective lyrics dive far below the surface, exploring the intricacies of human experience and the relationships that lie within. Friendship and family; life, loss, strength, and illness; memories of the past versus the present – these universal facts of life are examined with an especially personal touch to foster vivid connections between both listener and music, as well as listener and artist."

Bear's Den - fickle love, 2013

"For ten years now, Bear’s Den have poured their own unfiltered humanity into their songs, treating audiences around the world to an array of warm, tender, and achingly intimate indie folk-rock confessionals that make the heart flutter and skip a beat or two."

Bear's Den - think of england, 2014

"Taken from that album is the bands new single, Think of England, which drops on February 2nd next year, via Communion Records / Carloline, and was, like the rest of the record, produced and mixed by Ian Grimble (The 1975, Daughter). It opens up with this tumbling percussion, handclaps and atmospheric guitar sighs, as Davie delivers this folk based vocal, the emotion in his voice only heightened with the evocative accompaniment. As the track progresses so it gently starts to unravel, almost unnoticed at first till, with the addition of strings, it builds to its climax."

Bear's Den - elysium, 2014

"'Elysium' was one of those tracks that became very personal to me very quickly. It made me think about my younger brothers and their transition from kids to adulthood — how they are carving out their individuality and quickly leaving youth, innocence, and wide eyes behind. "Brother don't grow up.... /Just hope that age does not erase all that you've seen/Don't let bitterness become you/Your only hopes are within you."

Bear's Den - the star of bethnal green, 2019

"I know that there are many of you out there that have been caught by a song, you were caught and taken along a spiritual journey. It can happen in a wide variety of ways, driving in your car, sitting on a bus with music in your ears or just sitting and quietly listening. There are times when music can simply transport you and take you through a thought or emotion, it can ease a pain or bring it to bear for you to be challenged and learn from. If that isn’t spiritual, I don’t know what is."

Bear's Den - crow, 2019

"Crow" by Bear's Den is a nostalgic elegy remembering the loss of a father figure. Full of bittersweet gratitude, the harmonic aspects of the track are a beautiful complement to the melody and lyrics sung by Andrew Davie with such pure emotion."