Thelma & James Return with Another Powerful Unreleased Song Snippet, ‘Canaries in a Coal Mine’

Thelma & James have now gone 3 for 3 for new music teasers, with the duo - comprising MacKenzie Porter and Jake Etheridge - sharing another evocative unreleased track.

The newly uploaded snippet, seemingly titled ‘Canaries in Coal Mines’, doubles down on Thelma & James’ rich, enchanting storytelling and their sparse, acoustic instrumentation, which pervaded their debut single, ’Happy Ever After You’, in January.

Porter and Etheridge step back into the shoes of the wistful, regretful ex-lovers from that viral track, with their voices again combining beautifully as they look back on what went wrong in a long-lost relationship, “Somewhere along the line, I think I just quit / Waking you up, every single time I had a bad dream / I remember them kids on your living room floor / Chinese food ain't them no more, it's a sad thing”.

The titular lyric is particularly striking, with Thelma & James comparing how they were given warning before the relationship imploded, much like the way in which coal miners would bring a canary to alert them to detect carbon monoxide. If the bird sadly perished, it told the miners they had to get out as fast as they could.

Across the gentle, undulating strum of Etheridge's acoustic guitar, Thelma & James croon, “Like canaries in a coal mine / Saw the cracks before the landslide / We were never getting out alive / Sometimes love just dies / Like canaries in a coal mine”.

‘Canaries in a Coal Mine’ follows another stellar unreleased song demo, ‘First Love’, which Thelma & James shared in late January, as the duo continue to hone their debut album.

It continues MacKenzie Porter and Jake Etheridge's impressive streak of teasers, and ensures the sense of anticipation remains through-the-roof ahead of their next release.

For the full lyrics so far to Thelma & James’ ‘Canaries in a Coal Mine’, see below:

“Somewhere along the line, I think I just quit

Waking you up, every single time I had a bad dream

I remember them kids on your living room floor

Chinese food ain't them no more, it's a sad thing

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‘Cause my God, we choked on every sorry ‘til we sang our voices dry

Ignored every single warning, but broken wings can't fly

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Like canaries in a coal mine

Saw the cracks before the landslide

We were never getting out alive

Sometimes love just dies

Like canaries in a coal mine”

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