New Song Of The Day: Cowboy Dan – You And I

Today we welcome the return of Cowboy Dan back to our shores with the release of his new song and video, You And I.

Yes, Cowboy Dan (Leighton Edwards) has returned from Canada and the band is back together. This new song is a precursor to an upcoming EP titled Sentimental Now That We’re Leaving. Here’s the blurb with more details:

From the forthcoming EP, Sentimental Now That We’re Leaving, You and I continues the signature jangly feel of previous Cowboy Dan releases, while taking a step towards a slightly looser, fuzzier sound.

The accompanying video was shot predominantly in Vancouver, Canada. It captures the final fleeting days before guitarist and singer Leighton Edwards returned to Aotearoa. Brother and drummer Jared Edwards pieced the video together as a visual homage to winter in the Pacific Northwest and a heady exploration of the conflicting emotions of returning to the familiar.

You and I

You and I is a song that marries the mundane to the existential. Buying supermarket flowers and seeing the passing of time through the death of these flowers; “bought some supermarket flowers, put them in a vase, they look nice, then they die.” It is about confronting the reality that, despite our eccentricities and our egocentric vantage on the world, we are all essentially the same. It’s also about siding with our ID, and choosing to ignore this knowledge.

While there is a potential heaviness to the subject matter, You and I is about as happy as Cowboy Dan has ever sounded. Musically, and lyrically the song is almost euphoric. Tight harmonies and a poppy chorus keep the warmth of the Cowboy Dan sound at the forefront. Feedback overwhelms the intro and a brooding, hypnotic bridge punctures the warmth to offer another layer of complexity that mirrors the lyrical back and forth.

You and I marks the return of Cowboy Dan, two years on from their last outing. It lays the way for the release of their second EP, Sentimental Now That We’re Leaving, which will be  released on April 16, with a gig at Wine Cellar to mark the occasion. Tickets on sale now from Under The Radar.