Ever since watching Sam Himself's music video for "Never Let Me Go", I knew that he would be back with something good, but I definitely didn't expect the quirky, playful and stylish look of the visuals for his newest single "Golden Days". Compared to the dramatic and serious landscape of the last video, it's like a night and day contrast between the two and I really loved to see the Swiss artist let go in an entirely different way. "Golden Days" is another blend of Sam Himself's European-meets-American style, in which he celebrates the cheesy TV specials of the last century for all their tacky ways, but nonetheless entertaining. He's the golden-faced cowboy at the centre of all the action who sings in that sprawling baritone of his about the re-opening of the world and a renewed hope. His voice echoes over guitar-driven Western ballad, although blurred at the edges with a shoegaze production to bring that older style right up to the modern day. I especially love the little guitar melodies that pierce the thick veil of dreamy sound, much like the opportunities that are emerging now at the end of the last two years.
“I definitely didn’t plan to cut an entire album when I went back into the studio earlier this year, but the initial session went so well, we walked out with just under ten songs. On a whim, I asked Daniel for more dates before everyone was gonna be busy again for months. He was all for it, provided that I had more songs ready to record - which of course I didn’t, but that didn’t stop me. I bluffed, the dates went on the calendar and just like that, I had about a week to write two whole songs from scratch. I got the chorus for ‘Golden Days’ together pretty quick, but I heard it as a more of a slow, Western ballad type of thing; I’d just been on tour, meaning days and days in the van listening to nothing but Country – ask my band, they love it! – so all I could come up with was, like, Patsy Cline! Luckily for me, JD (Werner) is a prolific songwriter in his own right who just makes stacks of demos at all times! I told him about my conundrum, he offered to show me some of the material he’d been working on. The very first demo he shared gave me the instrumental parts for the verses and those beautiful guitar themes. Then all I had to do was write some words, find a vocal melody, speed up my Country chorus and that’s how we made ‘Golden Days’.”
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