C.D. Singles Club #12 – Langhorne Slim – I Love You But Goodbye

He’s ba-ack. And this time, unlike when Carol Anne creepily uttered the warning, the return is a good thing. That’s because this time, the phrase is less warning and more celebration of the upcoming full-length album release by Langhorne Slim. Be Set Free, due out September 29th on Kemado Records, finds Slim at his most cinematic and vulnerable, and promises to be a game-raising follow-up to the already wonderful self-titled album he put out last year on Kemado and his previous work, recorded both indpendently and on Narnack Records.

“I Love You But Goodbye” is the first track to be leaked from the label and provides a pretty excellent teaser for the rest of the record. Vintage blue-eyed blues, tells the familiar yet always impossible to cope with tale of love lost regretfully and powerlessly. Sonically, the song directly channels a young man’s middle-aged Bob Seger, as the instrumentals feature mostly gentle guitar strumming and piano key tinkling. Lyrically, Slim starts things off with poignance, asking the anonymous subject why the came into his life if they couldn’t stay forever.

Much of the rest of the song is a series of rhetorical questions and aphorisms, as Slim comes to terms with a relationship that is ending on someone else’s grounds. After asking himself who he was before the lover came around and why he couldn’t have been the first to leave the relationship, Slim does his best to reconcile his heartbroken ambivalance, as the song ends on a powerful instrumental climax and with a ferocity of forlorn forgiveness.

Langhorne Slim – I Love You But Goodbye