Courtney Barnett has released the new song “Write a List of Things to Look Forward To,” off the upcoming Things Take Time, Take Time.
In the song’s accompanying Christina Xing-directed video, Barnett is home alone, but she exchanges gifts and letters with an unseen pen pal that brings joy to her days in isolation. The generous pen pal also sends her a guitar.
“Nobody knows why we keep trying,” she sings. “And so on it goes, I’m looking forward to the next letter that I’m gonna get from you.”
The song was inspired by her friends’ suggestions to help her find a way out of a “depressive funk.” “I found a deeper communication with people in my life — deeper conversations,” Barnett said in a statement. “And a new level of gratitude for friendships that had been there for so long that I had maybe taken for granted.”
The musician recently told Rolling Stone that Things Take Time, Take Time – out November 12th via Mom + Pop – is about finding “some sort of joy and gratitude, out of some sort of pain and sadness.”
“On the one hand, nothing was happening to me last year,” she said. “But at the same time, so much was happening! There’s that lyric in ‘Turning Green’ about flowers in the weeds — as in, finding beauty in a place where you least expect it. That’s my ongoing lesson for myself.”
In August, Barnett performed the album’s “Rae Street” on The Tonight Show.
From Rolling Stone US
