Ben Folds was in the midst of an Australian tour when the coronavirus struck, and he’s been there ever since. He’s staying put and is recording his next album. Last month he released this ballad, even though the year in question is only halfway over.
“We seem to be currently reliving and cramming a number of historically tumultuous years into one,” Folds said in a statement. “For a moment it was all about the 1918 pandemic. Then we began seeing hints of the Great Depression before flipping the calendar forward to the Civil Rights protests of the Sixties. Running beneath this is the feeling that we’re in the Cold War, while seeing elements that brought us to the Civil War rearing their head, making us wonder if we’ve learned a damn thing at all.”
So why is the tune in a major key? “If you set those same words to some really foreboding music,” Folds said, “it would sound like the end of the world.”
