Song of the Day 5/20: Kevin Morby, “This Is a Photograph”

With apologies to El Somnambulo, who handles the new music feature round these parts, I’ve been in the car a lot the past few days and have heard this one on WXPN a couple of times. The song, the title track to Morby’s seventh solo LP since 2013, certainly arrests your attention while you’re driving on I-95 through Chester.

Kansas City-based folk-rocker Morby wrote the song after seeing his father collapse at a family dinner. It was nothing serious — an an accidental double dose of heart medication — but along with the pandemic it got Morby thinking about mortality. So he went to Memphis for three weeks and recorded the album, which is getting more media attention than his previous six combined.