Snail Mail, the indie band formed by 22-year-old songwriter Lindsey Jordan, recently ushered in a new era of music with the dynamic single “Valentine” and officially announced a new album of the same name. Now giving another preview of the LP, which is set a for an early November release, Jordan shares a visual for her vibrant track “Ben Franklin.”
Directed by Josh Coll, the visual sees Jordan as an unhappy house wife in a posh East Coast mansion. But eventually, Jordan finds her way to joy with the help of some cathartic dance moves and an adorable puppy.
Prior to announcing Valentine, Jordan was keeping relatively out of the public eye. Her social media pages were run by her team and she stayed out of press. A line in “Ben Franklin” reveals her absence was due to a stint in a rehab center in Arizona, which she checked into at the end of last year.
Jordan spoke about her decision to address her rehab stint in “Ben Franklin” in a recent cover interview with NME. The singer said she was at first hesitant to publicize it, but then said it was such a “life-altering” moment for her that she couldn’t help but sing about it:
“When I left rehab, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to talk about this, and there’s no way I’m going to write about it, ’cause it’s nobody’s business. But when I was writing [‘Ben Franklin’], I was like, I don’t really want to write about crushing sadness in a melodramatic way like I usually do. I want to talk about things in a way that’s almost casually throwing some crazy sh*t out into the mix. I was sitting there with my notebook, and I was like, ‘I’m going to do it.’ At the time, I still didn’t have most of the album so I was like: ‘That’s future me’s problem.’ […] It’s hard. A lot of people in my life are like, ‘Oh, you did that – you put that in the song, huh?’ It’s not necessarily something I want to advertise about myself, but I kind of just… couldn’t really help it. It was such a monumental thing for me, and such a monumental switch-around. My personality is different now, for better in a lot of ways, but also… that kind of thing is its own trauma, you know? It’s really life-altering and I couldn’t ignore how that affected my music and me, and how I think about things.”
Watch the “Ben Franklin” video above.
Valentine is out 11/5 via Matador Records. Pre-order it here.