Veteran singer/songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips will be returning with his first new album since 2018’s Widdershins.
Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff, his 10th studio album, continues to build on his gentle songwriting that’s defined his career.
Phillips has shared the video for “Straight to the Ground” from that album and is the second song to be shared from the upcoming 10-song collection, following “Lowest Low.” The song has a methodical build and the lyric video, which you can see below, is shot in black-and-white and features footage of a small town out west.
“I tapped into my own youth to render a character whose small-town upbringing finds them feeling hemmed in and disillusioned. Imagining an idyllic vista out west, that all seems achingly out of reach,” Phillips says of the song. “I remember that feeling, the frustration of being 19 and quite certain that the whole world would pass me by if I didn’t get out of the house or hit the highway. I wrote this song last autumn, shortly before the recording session. When I sing it today however, I can’t help but think of my own 12-year-old daughter and all the kids whose lives have been disrupted by this pandemic – all of those graduation ceremonies and markers that have been snatched away.”
Grant-Lee Phillips’ Lightning, Show Us Your Stuff is out on Sept. 4 via Yep Roc.
