Breezeblocks (song)
Breezeblocks is a song by the British indie rock band Alt-J from their debut album An Awesome Wave (2012). It was released on 18 May 2012 as the album’s second single. The track was written by Joe Newman, Gus Unger-Hamilton, Gwil Sainsbury, and Thom Green, and produced by Charlie Andrew.
The song reached the top ten on the UK Indie chart and the US Alternative chart. It finished third in Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 2012 in Australia.
Meaning and inspiration: The idea started after Newman read a warning label on an aerosol can that said “may contain traces of something that may be flammable,” which inspired the line “she may contain the urge to run away.” He has said the song is about liking someone so much that you might hurt yourself and them. Breezeblocks, like much of An Awesome Wave, was partly inspired by the 1963 children's book Where the Wild Things Are. The lyrics reference it with lines like “Do you know where the wild things go?” and end with the refrain “Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole / I love you so.”
Music video: The video for Breezeblocks was directed by Ellis Bahl and is Alt-J’s first official music video, starring Jonathan Dwyer, Jessica DiGiovanni, and Eleanore Pienta. It features a fight between a man and a woman shown in reverse and has a quirky, mysterious message that invites a second viewing. It premiered on YouTube on 23 March 2012 and has hundreds of millions of views (over 290 million by 2025). The video won Best Alternative Video at the UK Music Video Awards in 2012.
Formats: 7-inch single, digital download, and digital remix releases.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:07 (CET).