Over two decades since its release, Wolf Parade’s indie rock classic “I’ll Believe In Anything” is getting its viral moment thanks to a pivotal scene in the sports romance show Heated Rivalry. Created, directed, and written by friend of the band Jacob Tierney, the Crave series follows two rival hockey players who — spoiler alert — have a romance off the ice. “I’ll Believe In Anything” plays during the eponymous fifth episode named after the track, in which another hockey player publicly comes out as gay by kissing his partner in the middle of the rink after winning the MLH Cup.
“For one, the premise of a sexy, gay hockey show sounds fun,” Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug told the Canadian publication The Globe And Mail about licensing the song for the series. “And two, Jacob Tierney is someone we’re familiar with as a band. I met him before, years ago, when he was first starting up. We talked a little bit then about me doing music for one of his projects. We had no idea that the song would trend the way it is, or that it would be such, like, a main character in [Episode 5.]”
“I’ll Believe In Anything” is now reportedly up 3,000% in Spotify streams, and has been used in thousands of TikToks. The Heated Rivalry episode itself is getting a spectacular critical response too, briefly tying the perfect 10 IMDb user rating of Breaking Bad’s “Ozymandias” episode. Of all this new attention, Krug added: “To be honest, it’s like another person wrote the song, because it was so long ago. I don’t really connect with my 25-year-old self any more. We’re all reading work that someone else did. I’ve always had the philosophy that once you record a song and release it into the world, you let it do its thing. It’s interesting to watch. I’m not going to try to control anything. We almost always play it live. I’m curious how this changes the reception of the song. It’s all very surprising.”
Krug also published a whole history of “I’ll Believe In Anything” on his Patreon, but he shared a snippet of it for non-subscribers on Instagram. Here’s that:
It was on that upright piano that I wrote the song “I’ll Believe in Anything.” The original is wildly different from the Wolf Parade version it later became. At the time, I wasn’t trying to make anything rock’n’roll, or epic. I was just making another one of my kooky piano songs. For me, it was a scrappy little love song about two people willing to take a chance on their young relationship, even though they’d already screwed up a little bit and its chances of survival were slim. If the singer could just settle down, face the reality of their love, then maybe they could settle down together (“If I could take the fire out from the wire / I’d share a life…”) Maybe they could / should even go somewhere new, start fresh, where nobody knows them. Love is worth trying for, kind of thing. I recorded it with some shitty mics onto my computer, added some loose yet relentless hand claps, and called it a song.
And, because you’re probably curious, here’s that Heated Rivarly scene:
THE WAY THE CROWD REACTS TO HEATED RIVALRY EPISODE 5 IS INSANE!!!!!! THIS IS HOW YHIS SHOW SHOULD’VE BEEN VIEWED!!! WHAT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE!!!!!!!! ?❄️??⛸️?❤️✨❤️???❤️✨??❄️???⛸️???❄️❤️?⛸️??????⛸️????❤️?❤️?✨????✨? Just wanna show y’all’s impact because of this show, #RachelReid and @Jacob Tierney! Thanks to @Heated Rivalry and @cravecanada and @HBO Max!!! ???? WATCHING HEATED RIVALRY IN A PACKED SPORTS BAR IS TRULY THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO MANY OF US HERE WHO LIKE MEN WHO LOVE MEN ON SCREEN!!! I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS!!!!!!!!! @wehogymbar, thank you for having us!!!!!! ??❤️?? #HeatedRivalry #CraveCanada #HBOMAX
