Check out the latest video from the acclaimed Bonnie “Prince” Billy, also known as musician Will Oldham. Life is Scary Horses is a re-invention of the song by Sally Timms and Jon Langford – indeed, Oldham calls it a “…spiritual cover.” This is a song that remains with you long after you’ve finished listening; profound words tumble out in compelling melody: “Life is scary // We are scared //We’ve arrived here unprepared…The human times have come and gone // We must accept our rule is done.” Extended notes of sweeping strings, sonorous and resonant, are quietly epic and provide the foundation for Oldham’s voice, supported beautifully by Sally Timms, who also appears in the video, connecting this version strongly with the original composition. The strings are arranged by Oldham’s cousin, Ryder McNair, and further textures are delivered by the light percussion and whistling by Thomas Deakin.
Oldham says: “A primary reason to cover a song comes from the unanswered questions the song poses in our individual or collective psyches, and I have mulled ‘Horses’-generated questions over and over and over again in all sorts of circumstances until finally I thought I could bring those questions to life in a new composition, a new recording, of what can technically and essentially be called a new song.”
Directed by filmmaker Braden King, the video juxtaposes the remnants of humanity with vast, sweeping landscapes and animated lights brightening the sky in supernatural glory. Shot on Location at Middlegate Station, Fallon, NV and on Highway 50, known as America’s Loneliest Road – there’s a feeling of desolation. King shares: “This piece carries long memory. Will and I have been moving in and out of each other’s orbits for over half my life; his friendship, collaboration, and music, along with Sally Timms’ own, are woven into me. Somehow, making this felt less like creating something new than uncovering something that had been waiting a long time to surface. It’s a message assembled from fragments; landscapes and symbols gathered from a world that’s slipping away and what remains when certainty is gone. As it evolved, the piece itself began to feel like a relic: an elegy left behind for a future that might not remember us – or maybe one that might be trying to learn who we were.”
Oldham adds: “I have worked with Braden for a few decades now, our slow burns aligning just enough to remain aware that King is one of many life-saving flotation devices in human form that I am privileged to collaborate with.”
This single appears on the brand new album We Are Together Again, out now on Domino / No Quarter. An early album-of-the-year contender? Quite possibly. Be absorbed.
