As Courtney Barnett prepares to release the follow-up to 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, the indie-rock vanguard has unveiled another new track from the forthcoming Things Take Time, Take Time called “Before You Gotta Go.” A contemplative, mid-tempo melody, “Before You Gotta Go” was co-produced by Barnett and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa. While it seems to be making sense of a romantic separation, the lyrics are gracious and understanding: “If something were to happen my dear, I wouldn’t want the last words you hear to be unkind.”
“Sometimes I try to say everything in one song, or put my whole belief system into a vox pop, but you just can’t do that — it’s impossible,” Barnett says about her forthcoming third album, which already has one single out, “Rae Street.”
“This extra level of self-reflections and depth [during lockdown] gave me an unobstructed view of myself that maybe before, in other circumstances, I could just avoid by distracting myself with people or activities or going out somewhere,” Barnett recently told The Independent of how she experienced the last pandemic year. “There was none of that. This was a forced, more direct look into myself. Certain levels of that were probably very confronting but I tried to make the most of the parameters set for me.”
Listen to “Before You Gotta Go” above.
Things Take Time, Take Time is out 11/12 via Mom + Pop Music/Marathon Artists. Pre-order it here.