Arcade Fire’s Will Butler is readying a new solo album, Generations, which comes out next month. He previewed it in July with “Surrender,” and now he has returned with a video for “Close My Eyes.”
Merge Records describes the track as “a song that searches for comfort and almost finds it.” The label also notes that Butler shot the video himself in a rowboat that his grandfather built, and that the visual “highlights the song’s longing for escape.”
Butler says of the song, “I tried to make the lyrics a straightforward and honest description of an emotion I feel often–a drive for change coupled with despair: ‘I’m tired of waiting for a better day. But I’m scared and I’m lazy and nothing’s gonna change.’ Kind of a sad song. Trying to tap into some Smokey Robinson/Motown feeling — ‘I’ve got to dance to keep from crying.’”
He also previously spoke about Generations more broadly, saying, “My first record, Policy, was a book of short stories. Generations is more of a novel — despairing, funny, a little bit epic… A big chunk of this record is asking: What’s my place in American history? What’s my place in America’s present? Both in general — as a participant, as we all are, in the sh*t that’s going down — but, also extremely particularly: me as Will Butler, rich person, white person, Mormon, Yankee, parent, musician of some sort, I guess. What do I do? What can I do? The record asks that question over and over, even if it’s not much for answers.”
Watch the “Close My Eyes” video above.
Generations is out 9/25 via Merge. Pre-order it here.