Once again, it’s a privilege to premiere the video of a song as beautiful and masterfully crafted as Die of Shame from one of the UK’s finest songwriters, Michael Weston King. Through the video, featuring a performance filmed by Thomas Dibb at Yellow Arch Studios in Sheffield and driving footage filmed, sourced and edited by Paul ‘Rile’ Avis for The Video Shop, we travel down streets and motorways and seafronts, seeking and searching, while the song takes us on a similar musical journey that is gorgeously tuneful and expansive.
It begins with an insistent guitar phrase that introduces the song’s darker mood and the sense of unresolved tension. King’s voice, always warm and resonant, ranges through lovely low notes and rises high and plaintive over textured instrumentation that ebbs and flows in sonic movements. Those musical layers build to a fabulously fierce guitar solo from Shez Sheridan halfway through that reflects the song’s emotion and heart. As with all King’s songs, Die of Shame is written and arranged with expert precision, and its melodic intent is central to its effectiveness. Heart-worn and heartfelt, the lyrical purpose matches the musical quality and sense of fullness. King’s heavy words tackle themes of press intrusion and those who feed upon tragedy and profit from others’ grief, chasing headlines and photos of people in their most turbulent moments, their darkest times.
This is the latest single from King’s new album, Nothing Can Hurt Me Anymore, which is out now on CRS / Continental Record Services. An early album-of-the-year contender, this richly rewarding collection of songs possesses a rare timelessness and character. The background to the album’s creation is well known: King was progressing with a My Darling Clementine album with his wife, Lou Dalgleish, when they lost their granddaughter, Bebe, in immensely tragic and very public circumstances. In their grief, that project was paused while each of them responded to the loss through their own music. The resulting collection of songs is remarkable in its sense of purpose, its melodic intent and its timeless quality. If you haven’t absorbed it yet, then don’t delay any longer.
