“This Thing” is the only Joey-led song on Fishing For Fishies and seems to focus on a fraught relationship. Despite the rift, however, Joey knows that one of them has to try and fix it — which he explains by describing the friendship as something waterlogged and in need of wringing out. While it might just be about a broken friendship, it could also be referring to our relationship to the environment, adding to the album’s overarching themes. The song starts with a simple and steady groove accented by distorted harmonica, harp and synthesized strings, that leads to a faster outro with layered repeating vocals, looping acoustics and synthesizer additions.
The liner notes state that “This Thing” was recorded at TFS Studios in May of 2018 by Gareth Liddiard, with additional overdubs recorded by Cook, Joey and Stu in Melbourne from July to November. The track was played by Cavs (drums/shaker/tambourine/conga), Joey (electric guitar/vocals/keyboards/synthesizer/acoustic guitar), Stu (bass/Mellotron/piano/vibraphone), Ambrose (harmonica) and Cook (electric guitar) and was mixed by Joey and Sam Joseph. It was released on Fishing For Fishies on April 26th, 2019.
The song made its live debut on 2019-06-26 at Howler in Naarm (Melbourne) and would be played heavily as a standalone track throughout 2019. A performance of the song from 2019-10-08 was used as a bonus feature for Chunky Shrapnel. After three performances in 2020 ending with 2020-02-21, the song took a two year break — returning on 2023-03-06 at Plan B in Malmo, after which it appeared on a regular basis. The song would see a few reinventions in 2024. Stu would change his instrument of choice for these performances. While he used to play keys/synthesizers up to 2023, he chose to pick up the electric guitar. The result of this are heavier jams than previous versions. That said, the band also introduced an acoustic rendition during their show on 2024-05-31.