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Folk rock band Goodnight, Texas are preparing to release their fourth full-length album, How Long Will It Take Them To Die, in January 2022. Now, they're premiering a new song from the project called 'Borrowed Time'. Listen to it below.
The band, which is co-led by singers and songwriters Patrick Dyer Wolf and Avi Vinocur, includes Scott Griffin Padden (drums), Adam Nash (guitar) and Chris Sugiura (bass).
'Borrowed Time' wrestles with limited resources — both personal and planetary. The song's jaunty arrangement juxtaposes its darker subject matter. Wolf zooms in on three scenes, each one hinting at a growing environmental urgency, while the narrator focuses on finding his way.
"I been using borrowed time/ I been losing what isn't mine/ I been boozing but feeling fine", Wolf sings.
In talking about 'Borrowed Time', Wolf called the song "an existential banger". He explained, "It's a surface-level good time in the midst of a million nagging questions. You're getting older, to the point when the years start to really fly, and in midair you're trying to take stock of how you're using them".
But the questions reach beyond identify. "The planet seems to be in a lot of danger", Wolf continued. "California is on fire most of the time. You're trying to balance waking up early to be a husband and a dad to young kids with staying up late to be a traveling musician. You're conscious of your mortality and the luck you've been handed so far, and you want to do it all justice, but it's not always clear how".
In the face of those larger-than-life anxieties, Wolf and the band opt for music. "Sometimes it makes the most sense to take a guitar solo and shake a can of Tony Chachere’s", Wolf said, referencing the popular Cajun spice blend, which he uses as an instrument on 'Borrowed Time'.
Goodnight, Texas draw their name from the midpoint between Wolf's and Vinocur's locations in San Francisco, California and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In the middle of those two poles sits Goodnight, Texas, a small town east of Amarillo. Meeting halfway for the name reflects the band's larger stylistic choices, which blend folk, rock and blues.
Since their debut in 2012, A Long Life of Living, the band has released several more albums, EPs, and even the 2020 live album, appropriately titled, Live in Seattle, Just Before The Global Pandemic.
Their last full-length album, Conductor, came out in 2018, but you might have heard their single 'The Railroad' soundtrack the opening title sequence of the early pandemic streaming hit Tiger King.
How Long Will It Take Them To Die arrives January 21, 2022.
