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Sometimes the only thing you can do with love is throw yourself into it. Just close your eyes, let go and jump. It might be scary, but these are the little moments that remind you that you’re alive. The stunning new single from Americana literary songsmith Karen Jonas finds her standing on the edge of one of these moments, looking down into the dark unknown of a new relationship.
“This isn’t gonna be a casual romance,” Jonas sings, “it’s gonna be heartbreak / I’m just a little nervous to love you but I want to anyway.”
In keeping with the apprehension, the song builds tentatively, one careful step at a time; slow burning guitars swirling around her tenaciously beautiful voice as she flips between brave and defiant to afraid and fragile.
"I wrote 'Lay Me Down' about a climactic moment in a relationship," Jonas explains. “It’s a snapshot of a late-night crucial decision - the date that went really well, and they’re sitting on a couch at his place. To experience something beautiful, she has to choose to be vulnerable. The lyrics show trepidation, but the band builds urgency."
These are the little moments that determine or doom a relationship and you feel the weight of every single one of them in each carefully placed syllable. It's almost as if the song itself is as delicately balanced as the moments she's singing about and it makes it all the more beautiful.
'Lay Me Down' is premiering exclusively on Holler below.
The song is taken from Karen Jonas’s sixth LP, The Restless, which comes out on March 3rd. It's a stunning collection of dreamy and dark alt-country confessionals; a deep exploration of love and vulnerability from one of Americana’s most hopeless romantics.
“The record tells a story, but it isn’t linear,” Jonas says. “There are throughlines: this collection of raw, romantic and ill-fated stories. It’s important to me that the songs don’t judge the stories, they just dig in, leaving you to draw your own conclusions.”
The Restless is released on March 3rd. Click here for more information.
