Back in July we previewed Transparent Towns, the seventh full-length from Oklahoma songwriter John Calvin Abney, describing how the album emerged from what Abney’s described as “a period of introspection and convalescence” after he underwent vocal cord surgery. “Forced to exist in near total silence,” we wrote, “Abney used the quiet to delve back into his past, dwelling on the accumulation of small moments of both growth and loss that mark the passage of time.” Lead single ‘Last Chance’ introduced the style, a song which “look[ed] back at Abney’s Oklahoma youth,” as we continued, “and the then-unknown moment when beloved things slipped away.”
With the release of Transparent Towns now less than a month away, John Calvin Abney has returned with the title track as the latest single. Featuring Lydia Loveless on backing vocals, the song embodies the spirit of an album concerned with memory and its fickle nature, exploring how the past can become inaccessible as the years accumulate and our recollections can be altered or replaced by dreams. “This song was written and re-written probably ten times, as the sentiment formed,” Abney explains. “I was heavily influenced by the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, and learned that the stories we tell of people and places influence the way we perceive them in return and departure. Our memories are altered by subsequent tales and encounters. We arrive at a town worn or leave a city with a faint destination in mind, we do the same with life. Mortality isn’t a stranger to any one of us but I started thinking of what it might be like to reunite with the folks who have gone on ahead of us and what a weary catch up would be like after we arrive.”