Passing Time with Noble Beast and “Long Year” / “Something on Your Mind”
“The passing of time really stresses me out,” songwriter Emma Jane of Noble Beast told Wormbrain.
“I want a lot out of life and have big plans and ideas and I do deeply fear not ever getting to them, because maybe I won’t be around to see it happen or I’ll fail to ever get to everything I hope to. Last year was a long year for many reasons. I started going to therapy for the first time in my life, started working through something that called into question everything I knew about myself and how I move through the world, and I finished school, and felt I had to start envisioning what life was going to look like now.”
Noble Beast told us their new single can “semi” be viewed as a pandemic song, but that the first voice memo recordings of “Long Year” actually came from early January of 2020 and it was finished near the end of the same year, before being released now. “I love knowing that, because I think it makes sense for the song thematically that it took a long time to come to fruition.”
The track rides the line of melancholic and sanguine, both through its perceptive lyrics (see: “It's a long life, but I'm sticking around to see where it goes…” and “It is not just enough to exist, will it ever be enough just to exist?”) and its whimsical meander through genres. This balance tracks, as Emma Jane explained, “Overall it is about choosing to be here and choosing to seek out the things that do bring big emotions, despite how hard things can be and despite those fears.”
“Long Year” marks the much anticipated first release from the Chicago, IL multi-instrumentalist in a few years (since their equally stellar 2019 “Stop Waving” demo), returning them to the radars of alternative folk and indie pop fans alike, and comes matched nicely with a fitting cover of “Something on Your Mind” by the late, great country blues singer Karen Dalton.
Photo by Omari Spears.
When Wormbrain asked what brought the pairing of the original and the tribute, EJ said, “Her music is really a comfort for me when I’m low, especially ‘Something on Your Mind.’ Karen sings that song so lovingly, like she knows the person so well, she sees through what they’re doing and knows how they’re really feeling.” God I needed to hear that, “You can’t make it without ever even trying!” ⏤so you better try damn it! I think the songs are connected through that, you’ve got to choose to try to make it through. ‘Long Year’ I think reaches the same conclusion, and both don’t promise it’s going to be easy.”
“Everything feels so different now, but every release still feels very like me and very much like this project,” reflected Emma Jane on the Noble Beast project’s past, present, and future. “It definitely feels really strange to be writing what I think are better songs now, but to still believe in the old ones so much that I’m dedicating lots of time to making fully realized versions of them. Mostly it’s hard because I’m slow at recording and I’m playing every instrument on it. I’m hoping it will be done soon because I’m ready to move on to the next thing.”
Photo by Emma Jane.
“Overall it is about choosing to be here and choosing to seek out the things that do bring big emotions, despite how hard things can be and despite those fears.”
W.W: What is Wormbrain?
EJ: Brain that gets stuck on one thing, maybe a couple things, that wormed their way in there for an extended amount of time — Certain worms may come and go but Wormbrain is forever. Make friends with your Wormbrain today.
W.W: Thank you for sharing with Wormbrain.
“long year/something on your mind” is available now, self-released by Noble Beast via Bandcamp.
