Bonny Light Horseman, the folk supergroup made up of Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman — have released a new single, “When I Was Younger”.
Produced by Kaufman and recorded at Levis’ Corner House in Ballydehob, west Cork, the accompanying music video was filmed on location by Jason Lee, Donal Scannell, and Colm Rooney, and credits the ‘Levis’ Town Chorus’ on backing vocals.
With its charm and intimate setting, Levis’ provided the perfect backdrop for capturing the raw emotion and authenticity inherent in Bonny Light Horseman’s sound.
“There’s a whole genre of trad songs with this ‘domestic frustration’ sentiment, like ‘Single Girl Married Girl,’ ‘Wish I Was A Single Girl Again,’ etc,” the band said. “This song is inspired by those, but we wanted to write it as a duet, to tell two sides of a story. We recorded it live, so you can hear coughing, cars, and the whole audience did that wordless wail with us in the middle. It felt like a primal collective shake-off. Next morning we were collecting our things from the pub and the owner Joe was out front in flip-flops sweeping up the cigs from the street singing, ‘When I was younger, I used to dress fancy…’”
On welcoming Bonny Light Hoseman to Levis’, owners Caroline O’Donnell and Joe O’Leary said: “In Levis’, we try to treat musicians and all artists like family because we see them as family, because we are all part of the global Cultural community. Though we’re more than aware of commercial realities, we feel we have to be almost bigger than business. We do this by working with sound, open-minded folk, and by caring about the person and treating artists as people, not some commodity. Community is much bigger than commerce.
“There’s a lot of great people out there, particularly a network of amazing super talented women, in this country and all over the world, all trying to show this other way and connecting people up. We all just want to gravitate towards the good things. It was through this beautiful network of creators that Anaïs, Eric, Josh, JT, Cameron, and Bella (the extended Bonnie Family Band), ended up recording their album in Levis’ Corner House and hanging out in the ‘Hob for a sweet few days last September.”
If you’re new to Bonny Light Horseman, the band have released two stunning albums to date, 2020’s self-titled debut and their 2022 follow-up, Rolling Golden Holy.
Bonny Light Horseman are also no strangers to the Irish stage having featured among the bill of 2023’s Sounds from a Safe Harbour, one of Ireland’s finest festivals held in Cork.
G.M
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