The First Promise is a love letter at the start of a new season of happiness. I was playing around with a new tuning, in a new apartment, writing new songs, with a budding new love warming my world, and all that newness felt like an invitation to the future. I wanted to promise that future and all that newness that I would rise to it, not let it slip through my fingers, and offer it something in return. Years down the track, it all feels just as new and promising, partly because I was able to set this benchmark for myself.
This song changed the most structurally from the wandering, Buckley-esque jam I initially imagined. In doing so, we were able to boil it down to the minerals of what the song was trying to ask of us. It took a while to get there, but when the middle-8 kicks in it feels like a whole new Have/Hold in full flight, and there’s no feeling like it in the world. Plus, being able to hear the voice of the person to whom I made that promise harmonising with me is profound beyond words.
Wirewalker Falls is out this Friday May 3rd.
Have / Hold 