John K. Samson has released Alpha Adept, a song from his new solo record.
‘Winter Wheat’ is out on October 21 through Anti- and follows up to his solo bow, ‘Provincial’, which was released in 2012. Discussing the song, which you can hear at Exclaim!, he said:
“Alpha Adept is a peculiar song. I wrote it as a sequel to the song before it on the record, Quiz Night at Looky Lou’s, partly because I felt bad abandoning that character where I left him, in a sports bar in Sioux Lookout, reading frightening meanings into things. One of the themes that runs through this record is delusional thinking, and how sometimes we need to learn to live with our delusions, accept them, in this case turn them into a useful reason to live.
“Especially if the only other option is to let them control and destroy us.
I was also interested in misinterpretations. For example, sometimes a misheard song lyric is better than the real lyric. In this case I imagine the protagonist reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot, and thinking the mermaids at the end of the poem aren’t going to sing for Prufrock because they are actually aliens from outer space delivering a message to him instead, letting him know they are going to return to Earth and take him away to a better place, where people aren’t so cruel.
“These two linked songs were also partly inspired by Terminator 2. Maybe future John Connor sent a T-800 back in time to help me write them?
Producers Christine Fellows and Jason Tait battled to see who could make the funniest sci-fi sounds for the middle instrumental part, and Greg Smith’s bass line is beautiful. It makes me really happy. I think the character in the song would approve of what they made.”
Samson also recently released Postdoc Blues, the first song to emerge from 'Winter Wheat'.
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