We are huge fans of Passenger around these parts and it’s hard to believe that it’s eleven years ago now that Mike Rosenberg released his breakthrough album ‘All The Little Lights’. The years leading up to its release were filled with personal and professional upheavals, and led him to a path of busking across the UK and Australia, where he would record the life-changing album. Assisted by the global smash ‘Let Her Go’, the album climbed charts all over the world, peaking at #3 in the UK (where it’s now approaching double-Platinum), #3 on Billboard’s Independent Albums in the States, and #2 in Australia. ‘Let Her Go’ was just as impactful, landing at #2 in the UK (5 x Platinum), #5 in the US (6 x Platinum) and scoring nineteen international #1s as it exceeded a staggering 2 billion streams, as well as another 3.5 billion views at YouTube. And hey, we do not feature artists with a billion anything very much on this site.
Now the artist is celebrating the album’s significance with the release of ‘All The Little Lights (Anniversary Edition)’ on November 10th, which is now available to pre-order / pre-save here. The album is available on all streaming platforms, CD, Deluxe 2CD, Coloured Vinyl LP, Deluxe Digital, plus exclusive merchandise and signed formats via the official store, and features new interpretations of songs through collaborations with artists such as the lovely Foy Vance who we chatted to back in 2021 (at a 2 metre distance of course), Gabrielle Aplin and Nina Nesbitt. It’s still striking today just how great some of these songs are, none more so than ‘Life’s For The Living’ which you can see the new video for below featuring Vance himself – those lyrics are just killer.
Passenger says, “This song is an acknowledgement of life’s madness and an understanding that the best way of dealing with it is to not resist it. Not to spend your time bemoaning the past or dwelling on missed opportunities, but instead to swim out and meet the waves head on, and more than that – enjoy it. These lyrics, perhaps with the exception of ‘Let Her Go,’ are probably the ones that have resonated most with people over the years. The amount of ‘Life’s For The Living’ tattoos I’ve seen has been incredible and humbling. I met Foy around the time that this album was first released, and we’ve been good friends ever since. He’s disarmingly honest, wickedly funny and his pursuit of creating beautiful, tasteful, and brilliant music is inspiring. I can’t think of a more perfect collaborator for this song.”
Passenger is touring some small record shops to promote the new record but as all the dates are sold out we won’t list them here, envy being one of the seven deadly sins along with being grumpy and sneezy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q-X3XCbPdM
Two great artists collaborating on a wonderful song. Simply fantastic!