Former Arcade Fire guy Will Butler and his backing band Sister Squares released a quite solid album last year. Today they’ve shared a new one-off single. “Burn It Away” is mostly low-key but works its way up to moments of intensity. “I want to burn it away,” Butler sings in the refrain. He shared this statement:
I wanted to make an open-hearted song about destroying the world, about despair in the face of trying your best to find hope. There’s a lyric that got cut about thinking you see the sun rise but it’s just the forest fires burning over the horizon. But I think music is intrinsically hopeful—always implicitly arguing in favor of creation—so maybe the song balances itself out.
Listen below.