Today you can hear 'Irene', the second track taken from my upcoming album 'Storm Damage'. It features Low's Alan Sparhawk on electric guitar and harmony vocal. I play metal resonator guitar over a synthetic tape loop. The song is a portrait of a singer and social change. It is about the power of nostalgia and the artist-audience relationship, which seems to obsess us all at the moment. It is also about the simple brutality of social change - how cities move on, scenes die and renew, and how people get caught up in that. I asked Alan to play on the song after we did a show together in Minneapolis in 2016. We have been friends for fifteen years since I remixed a Low song in 2004. I thought his restless, scratchily emotional guitar style would be perfect. Hope you like it. (Photo: Antonio Olmos)
Hey, Irene
Remember that club where you used to sing?
Red lampshades in the booths
Men whispering untruths
Well, they tore it down in the spring
I still remember your voice
I see the band playing up there on the stand
And all the smoke in the light
The music loud and the faces in the crowd
Was it a dream?
I heard that you moved out of range
Was it something you’d outgrown?
Needed something of your own?
I guess, well, everyone’s entitled to a change
The crowd has grown older too
But some of them, they still want a piece of you
They yearn for some golden age
The time that they first heard you from the stage
New Year’s Day
The snow was so thick but everybody came
For the songs that you sang
The whole glittering shebang
Oh, I see it all when I hear your name
Last night I walked there again
The neon city always ageless and unsung
The bars spilled onto the street
The music loud, different faces in the crowd
Hey, Irene
Where have we been?
Hey, Irene
You were a queen
Hey, Irene
Where have we been?
Words and music by Ben Watt
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Artwork: IWANTdesign
