The track is the second release from Wells’ forthcoming album Promise.
US artist Emily Wells has shared a new track, the dark and and emotionally uncompromising ‘Don’t Use Me Up’. Splicing together the folky sadness of Sharon Van Etten with Wells’ own unique, classical style, ‘Don’t Use Me Up’ is soft, candid and heartbreaking. Like a quiet howl at the moon, Wells’ voice is embittered and longing, and accentuates the track’s depth.
‘Don’t Use Me Up’ is hardened as well as sad, as showcased by the stark lyrics: “everything is easier when you wash it down / all your friends are your best friends when you wash it down”. Wells has talked about how personal the track is and the themes that it covers:
“Among the first songs written for the album some time ago during a time of particular abandon. I joke that it’s a song about whiskey, friendship and Jesus, but in truth it was an s.o.s. to myself, to my future self, to people I loved, intended to remind us that the body is finite. As time passes so grows the meaning of the song and I now think most often of the finiteness of the planet when I sing it. The recording is one shade shy of a gospel hangover with all the instruments tempted to come off the rails when things get too quiet.”
It’s a sobering sound ironically propelled by a “gospel hangover”. Listen to ‘Don’t Use Me Up’ below.
Promise, Wells’ follow-up to 2012’s Mama, will be released on January 29th via Partisan Records. Track listing:
Los Angeles
You Dream of China
Don’t Use Me Up
Pack of Nobodies
Take It Easy
Come to Me
Fallin’ In on It
Antidote
Adagio
Richard
Light is Drainin’
‘You Dream Of China’ (Lorna Dune Remix):