Expert in a Dying Field - The Beths

It's an idea that I had floating around for a while ... and then I think the phrase clarified itself, and I had that for a while without a song, eventually the song came up, which doesn't always work like that, there's [usually] a title of the song before the song.

– Songwriter Elizabeth Stokes on single Expert in a Dying Field, RNZ, 23 September 2023

How does it feel, to be an expert in a dying field? And how do you know, it's over when you can't let go?

– The key hook and lyrical question in The Beths' single Expert in a Dying Field

I'd been really reviewing my own part in the song and I'd just been listening to a lot of Crowded House and I think there was just something about the drum part in a lot of those songs that really spoke to me, it was striking a balance between the more traditional kind of pop punk drum part.

– Beths drummer Tristan Deck on finding the right beat for the song, RNZ, 23 September 2023

Stokes wrestles with what to do with the once-shared intimacy of a defunct relationship, her now-obscure specialist subject. What to do with the memory of your former partner’s footsteps on the stairs, your nonsensical shared language, your loving months or years-long research project into how to make them laugh so hard they gag?

– Excerpt from a review of The Beths' single Expert in a Dying Field, Pitchfork, 16 September 2022