It’s hard to say who’s been most active in the last week–Better Oblivion Community Center or Stella Donnelly in support of exciting impending albums. Better Oblivion has performed new songs on Colbert and CBS This Morning, and released a new video (discussion soon-come), while Donnelly has performed new songs on Tiny Desk and released another new song (the stellar Old Man). No rest for the weary.

As if that wasn’t enough, in further support for upcoming album Beware Of The Dogs, Donnelly has today released Lunch, one of the best songs we’ve heard so far in 2019. Check out the touching and hilarious (the subtitles!) video for Lunch below in all it’s lo-fi, grainy glory. The song is a lavish lament to a lyricist’s life on-the-lamb, with heartrending lyrics of disruption framed in superbly-sophisticated musical twists (particularly in its chorus and the accents found in the sprite-like background vocals and “Heys!”). In the coda one also hears limned a Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds musical motif (“Picture yourself….). It’s all magical. Brava!

Despite the song’s melancholy lyrics, the video diffuses the sadness with hilarious subtitles and vignettes. In other words: Sad Happy (Tim Buckley in reverse).

In a press release, Donnelly wrote this about Lunch:

This is my favourite song on the record. It was a massive team effort the night before I flew away on tour. A song that was only ever meant to be played on a single guitar and sung turned out to be the most intricate and textured piece of music I’ve ever produced. I wrote this about the feeling of displacement I get when I go on tour and come back and nothing feels the same. There’s a disconnect there.

Check out Lunch below. Not to sound like Marlon Brando, but in toto, it’s a tour de force!

Beware Of The Dogs is out on March 8th on Secretly Canadian.

Photo credit: Pooneh Ghana