Bonny Light Horseman–the trio of Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman–have signed to Jagjaguwar and today released their debut single for the label, the cathartic and resonant ‘When I Was Younger.’
Produced by Kaufman and recorded at Levis (pronounced: “leh-viss”) Corner House–a century-old Irish watering hole in Ballydehob, County Cork–‘When I Was Younger’ is out now alongside a video filmed on location and shot by Jason Lee, Donal Scannell, and Colm Rooney. Mitchell and Johnson’s honeyed voices meet and transform into a two-headed beast formed from pent-up emotion as the lyrics reckon with motherhood, maturation, and all of the things polite society doesn’t say out loud. “There’s a whole genre of trad songs with this ‘domestic frustration’ sentiment, like ‘Single Girl Married Girl,’ ‘Wish I Was A Single Girl Again,’ etc. This song is inspired by those, but we wanted to write it as a duet, to tell two sides of a story,” says the band. “We recorded it live, so you can hear coughing, cars, and the whole audience did that wordless wail with us in the middle. It felt like a primal collective shake-off. Next morning we were collecting our things from the pub and the owner Joe was out front in flip-flops sweeping up the cigs from the street singing, ‘When I was younger, I used to dress fancy…’”
Over the years, Bonny Light Horseman’s core trio has amassed an incomparable collected resume. Mitchell is a celebrated solo artist as well as the playwright and songwriter behind the hit Broadway musical Hadestown, which notched eight Tony Awards and a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Johnson is best known as the mind behind beloved indie mainstays Fruit Bats, as a longtime collaborator with The Shins, and as a film score composer. And Kaufman is a multi-hyphenate extraordinaire: songwriter, producer, and position player, having recorded and performed with artists ranging from Bob Weir to The War on Drugs to Taylor Swift, Hiss Golden Messenger and The Hold Steady. As a group, Bonny Light Horseman’s self-titled debut album received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Folk Album, while the track “Deep in Love” was nominated for Best American Roots Performance. Its critically-acclaimed follow-up, Rolling Golden Holy, saw them perform for CBS Saturday Morning and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s #LateShowMeMusic series, and landed on year-end best-of lists by Paste, Brooklyn Vegan, Under The Radar, and MOJO, amongst others.
As they round the corner toward a new album, Bonny Light Horseman arrive with a distinct sense of grace, and a reminder that life is most lived when things aren’t so perfect.
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