The Best The Deslondes Songs

Same Blood as Mine

The band exposes their bleeding hearts with ‘Same Blood as Mine’ on their debut self-titled album from 2015. Over front porch pickin’, they wax wistfully about a relationship that comes and goes just like a tumbleweed.

"I never will forget them good old times / It's been so long since, since you've been around," they opine. "It’s been too long / Since we were laughing with our heads up in the clouds.”

It’s a real pull-on-your-heartstrings kind of tune.

I'll Do It

The band also previously shared the Howe Pearson-penned “I’ll Do It” as well.

“This band feels like the old family farm,” Sam Doores said of Roll It Out. “It’s a place where we can meet for the Fourth of July, bring our families, grill some burgers, and make some music together. It’s always going to be there, and we know it’s going to work and feel good.”

After more than 15 years together, four albums, and countless live shows, the five members found new inspiration in the ties that bind them together as friends and collaborators for their fourth album.

With it's Byrdsian power harmonies and twangy twinned electric guitars, this Howe Pearson penned love song conjured up a feeling of swaying along in a cool breeze on a summer's day with a Piña Colada in both hands.

Many Poor Boy

From their second record, Hurry Home, ‘Many Poor Boy’ slinks with a sensual darkness. It pairs nicely against seductive lyrics.

“Well many poor boy done quit too soon / Many poor boy been waiting on a girl like you,” coos Riley Downing. He then suggests there’s absolutely “no talk tonight of what the future holds.” And you can guess why.

Those Were (Could've Been) The Days

This wistful love song from The Deslondes self titled debut album bursts out of the gate and gallops along before ending at just under two and a half minutes.

Written by Sam Doores, 'Those Were (Could've Been) The Days' was an early epitome of the melting pot of Western swing, rockabilly, R&B and traditional country that they have made undeniably their own ever since.

Standing Still

With ‘Standing Still’, from 2022's Ways & Means, the band experiments with the arrangement - particularly the background which features distorted bass, scratching strings and other trickling sounds.

“I hope your parachute's been checked / I wonder where you're gonna land this year,” details Downing. Both the arrangement and vocal performance seem to glide overhead, as fluttering and free as a piccolo.

Consider Me

A synthetic percussive pulse emits an incandescence, a sharp contrast to Dan Cutler’s earthy tone.

“Consider me when you’re thinking it’s the end / Come to find out we were just starting out too,” he pleads with a delicate refrain. Organ and piano stir softly in the mix. It’s truly a haunted performance.

Deja Vu and a Blue Moon

The band yearns for simpler days. The open road stretches before them. Even though its endless opportunity is exhilarating, it brims with sacrifice.

“Down the road, that’s where I’m bound, I know,” Downing resigns, singing that it’s a price he’s ready to pay. The production carries an equal load and nearly collapses on top of his voice.

Old Plank Road

Written by Dan Cutler, this light-hearted jug band ode to the clubs and bars of the band's early days and the simpler times they shared starting out ends on a wistful note, wondering if they somehow lost something somewhere along the way.

"There’s a bar in New Orleans. It’s very dark, it’s got no windows and it never closes," Cutler explained about how the song came about. "It’s full of ghosts that sometimes will keep you there until the sun is high in the sky. If you’re lucky, the ghosts may also provide you with some wisdom or perspective and you’ll leave there better than when you came in. Old Plank Road is an ode to that place, and others like it."

The suitably fun packed video directed by Bobbie Wernig starred the brilliant Jonny Fritz as a blundering TV presenter.

Hurricane Shakedown

The Deslondes tear up the dance floor with their two-stepper ‘Hurricane Shakedown.’ It’s ripe for Friday nights at the neon-strewn honky tonk.

“All she wants is loving, and loving is what she gets, wild as the weather, windy hot mess,” the band relates a romance’s feverish intimacy to a wind-whipping cyclone. It’s a damn good time.

Low Down Soul

Loneliness sticks to dusty guitar strings. The song’s sluggish gate suggests unimaginable heartbreak.

“I'm a low down soul out in a lonesome land,” sings Cameron Snyder. His voice strikes an appropriately somber tone, as his tears flow into his beers.

From the group’s self-titled debut, it sets the bar high for their particular brand of balladeering.

Grand Junction

The band's fourth album, Roll It Out, recaptured the energy of the band's early days as they reflected on their lives with a new found perspective of age and maturity.

"It reminds me of back when we were starting out, before we were even the Deslondes," John James Tourville from the band said of the album. "Back when we were the Tumbleweeds. It's like we're moving forward to get to where we were."

Written by Tourville and sung by Riley Downing, 'Grand Junction' was one of the album's undeniable highlights, like a lost Glen Campbell recording if he'd sung it when he was very hungover.

“I respect his songwriting just as much as anybody else’s even if he doesn’t want to sing," Downings said of his songs. "If he asks me to do one of his songs, I look at it as an honor just like I would if anybody else asked me to sing their songs.”

Ribbon Creeks Collide

Downing strolls through the musical crossroads where classic pop meets Americana. “Tell me now have I paid my dues / I carved a sign if you need a clue,” he wonders.

‘Ribbon Creeks Collide’ laces a lyrical melancholy over a moody, waltz-like feeling. It’s as though it’s ripped from a bygone era.

Muddy Water

The group muses on youth and Louisiana’s murky rivers and mud-caked embankments.

The summer heat gives the song a radiant shine, glazed over Downing’s moody and wistful performance. “You'll meet all kinds when you're a small town kid,” he reflects. The hands of time weigh heavily and impress with how ephemeral human existence really is.

Time to Believe In

In country & western tradition, ‘Time to Believe In’ gallops along with the click-clack of percussion and the guitar’s mournful tenderness. Harmonica pokes through the arrangement with its haunted warble.

Downing laments how tiresome cowboy living can really be, singing, “Time worth having has been long time gone.”

Out on the Rise

Bookending their 2015 album, this piano ballad is a wayfarer’s ode.

“In every town I go, soon as I swing low I’m out on the rise,” figures Sam Doores. The song’s protagonist calls out his own character flaws, riddled in perceived sins and loneliness. His knapsack is heavy, but he forges ahead anyway.

Take Me Back

The first taste of 2024's Roll It Out came in the form of 'Take It Back,' a rollicking good times rocker and roller that captured the rediscovered energy of the band.

Directed by Joshua Shoemaker, the video featured footage filmed throughout the band’s nearly two-decade existence.

“When you’re in the middle of wrapping up an album, it’s easy to get lost in the details and deadlines and lose sight of the footsteps, friends and experiences that brought you to where you’re at and what you’re working on," said Sam Doores. "When Joshua Shoemaker told me he had just unearthed a bunch of footage from wayyyy back in the day, I agreed that would suit the song perfectly. I’m very grateful to Joshua for taking all of this footage in the first place and now for dusting it all off. The video brings back so many fond memories of our early years coming together as a band and I’m proud to say that we all still love making music and laughing together.”

Fought the Blues and Won

‘Fought the Blues and Won’ opens the band’s 2015 LP with a message about perseverance and strength.

“It might hit you from all sides or right between the eyes / Keep on going though the bell's been rung,” encourages Downing. It’s a little shot of optimism, and the world could use it more these days.

Beautiful Friend

Upright bass and harmonica lace together beneath Dan Cutler’s airy vocals. “If I didn’t have you to lose, I guess I’d be a free man, move around wherever I choose,” sings Cutler.

Living can often come at the cost of love, and that’s something he is not willing to sacrifice. Instead, he plants deep roots and lets romance flourish.

South Dakota Wild One

“Out where the cottonwoods bloom is a bad land for a broken man,” sings Downing about tortured love and brokenness.

The Ways & Means standout is among the quieter moments in the band’s catalog, yet powerful nonetheless. Downing’s weathered vocals capture the exactness of deep heartache, the kind that throbs in your entire body.

Louise

Heartbreak chases him around. Dan Cutler can’t seem to “outrun these memories,” he laments. For the moment, he’s letting it all go, even though he knows “come tomorrow you'll be back to bring me sorrow.” Percussion and guitar are deceiving, rambling across the horizon with a little giddy-up.