Her first new music since 2020 record Moonth, ‘Will You Do Me a Kindness’ is the new single from Merce Lemon. It finds the Pittsburgh-based songwriter in sparkling form, capturing both the quiet peace of solitude and the roiling inner turmoil of loneliness in a style that combines earnest indie rock with an Americana twang. Lemon is joined by Reid Magette (guitar), Pat Coyle (drums and harmonies) and Ben Brody (bass), who together create a song that ebbs and flows between quiet introspection and a wild, barely-restrained energy.
The song’s crux is its title and and chorus, a phrase inspired by Colin Miller, with whom Merce Lemon released a split single of Will Oldham covers earlier this year. “The phrase ‘will you do me a kindness’ came from a YouTube video Colin showed me while we were recording last spring,” Lemon explains. “This song started with those words, and I built a story around it.”
It’s a story that relies more on symbolism than narrative thrust, evoking a thick, enveloping sense of nostalgia and yearning so sweet it stings. “Some of the imagery came from pictures Colin sent me of his home at Haw Creek,” she says, “especially the collection of outdoor chairs that the storms often blow around in his front yard.” A scene evoked by the song itself, where quiet domesticity is disturbed by forces unseen but no less capable of rearranging one’s entire experience of the world.
Will you do me a kindness?
Point the sun
Right into my flesh
I want
Nothing left
Will you do me a kindness?