Having released latest album deer back in May, Max García Conover has teamed up with Toronto‘s Julie Arsenault for a new double single again on Son Canciones. Those familiar with Conover’s work will recognise the intimate tone of ‘Don’t Let Us Get Rich’, another example of the authenticity of the New York songwriter and his uncanny knack of conjuring the headspace of a given day, again inviting the listener to step inside as Arsenault’s vocals offer a real sense of chemistry. While the B-side puts Bob Dylan’s ‘One To Many Mornings’ through this same filter, staying true to the original while playing like a direct continuation of the previous track.
Something of a plea, ‘Don’t Let Us Get Rich’ sees Max García Conover address his wife. Asking that their sincerity and humbleness might remain intact amid an age of calculating cruelty and greed. “Anyone can see the horizon is wanting / the national bird has a nest full of beaks,” as he sings. “Screaming to be set free from their longing / mistaking each other for something to eat.” This image of birds pushed outside of their natural cycles recurs across the song, and for all the song’s earnest hush, it ends up quietly frantic. Seeing through the façade of consumerist culture and finding a sick emptiness within.
don’t let us get rich and go crazy
don’t let us get rich at all
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The foreboding tone of Dylan’s ‘One Too Many Mornings’ feels like a continuation of this. Its dogs losing their barks, its nights falling too soon, its vision blackening as though there’s a cloud over the very days ahead. And though Julie Arsenault and Max García Conover’s dual vocals might sound like tender affinity at first, there’s another reading which raises its head too. Twin voices singing about the same thing but separately. Isolated within their own response to the situation, unable to help or be helped.
It’s a restless hungry feeling
And it don’t mean no one no good
When ev’rything that I’m sayin’
You can say it just as good
You’re right from your side
And I’m right from mine
We’re both just one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind
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Don’t Let Us Get Rich is out now via Son Canciones and you can get it from Bandcamp.