Hear Caroline Spence’s Delicate New Song ‘Slow Dancer’
On her debut LP Somehow, Caroline Spence used her soft soprano and the one-two punch of dreamy folk orchestration with chugging swirls of rock guitar to analyze one of life’s most perplexing mysteries: love, namely. Falling in it, falling out of it and everything in between, with lyrical muscle that evoked Ryan Adams. “Don’t turn me over like a book and break my spine,” she sang on “Don’t Call,” a searing reclamation of identity after heartbreak. On March 3rd, Spence will carry this conversation into its next chapter with the release of her sophomore LP, Spades & Roses. Listen to the exclusive premiere of its first single, “Slow Dancer,” below.
“This song is about the beauty of giving in to love after hesitating for so long,” Spence tells Rolling Stone Country of the track written with Stephanie Lambring. “We are all wanting to be swept away and fall hard – we had it in us all along – but yet we insist on this dance, this back and forth with ourselves and the other person. There is beauty in that hesitation as well, that back and forth. It’s all a dance.”
Appropriately, “Slow Dancer” beats to a delicate waltz, evoking the country quiver of Emmylou Harris circa Pieces of the Sky with her own unique, breathy breaks and the sharp combination of spiraling electric guitar and strings courtesy of Grand Ole Opry fiddler Eamon McLoughlin and cellist David Henry.
One of Rolling Stone Country‘s 10 Artists You Need to Know in Spring 2015, Spence moved to Nashville from Virginia to pursue songwriting, garnering awards and accolades from the Kerrville Folk Festival and others along the way. Last year, Miranda Lambert caught wind of the Somehow track “Last Call,” praising it on Instagram and adding it to her “On the Road” playlist. This spring, Spence will tour with another Lambert favorite – John Moreland – to support the release of Spades & Roses. Produced by Neilson Hubbard (The Apache Relay, Matthew Perryman Jones), it was recorded in East Nashville and includes ten songs written or co-written by Spence, as well as “To Go Down” by Pete Lindberg. Full track listing is below.
Spades & Roses tracklisting:
1. “Heart of Somebody”
2. “Hotel Amarillo”
3. “All The Beds I’ve Made”
4. “You Don’t Look So Good (Cocaine)”
5. “Southern Accident”
6. “Slow Dancer”
7. “Softball”
8. “To Go Down”
9. “Wishing Well”
10. “I Can’t Complain”
11. “Goodbye Bygones”