LONG WAY HOME: Ray LaMontagne’s heartfelt ode to Townes Van Zandt

GRAMMY award winning singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne has unveiled new single ‘Long Way Home,’ ahead of August’s album of the same name, released via his own ‘Liula Records’ label.

‘Long Way Home,’ is a sombre, bittersweet reflection on times past, the core of which reverberates deep into LaMontagne’s youth, aged 21 and watching Townes Van Zandt perform ‘To Live Is To Fly’ in a small Minneapolis club, and being struck by the line, “When here you been is good an gone, all you keep is the getting there.”

“Thirty years later it occurs to me that every song on ‘Long Way Home’ is in one way or another honouring the journey,” explains LaMontagne “The languorous days of youth and innocence. The countless battles of adulthood, some won, more often lost. It’s been a long hard road, and I wouldn’t change a minute. It took me nine songs to express what Townes managed to say in one line. I guess I still got a lot to learn.”

Produced in tandem with Seth Kauffman (Floating Action, Angel Olsen, Lana Del Ray), Long Way Home’s nine tracks recall the folk-rock explosion of the early seventies, while also occupying a place among the modern Americana revival LaMontagne was integral in fuelling.

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