The singer/songwriter/guitarist Morgan Geer, aka Drunken Prayer, spent much of last year on the road in support of his 2019 release Cordelia Elsewhere, an album that pondered the thoroughly mixed-up state of America and the individual American in the Trump era. But 2020 is, well, a whole different bag. And Geer has some other things on his mind. Now, a few weeks into an experiment in forced solitude due to a global pandemic, Geer has a song that speaks to the particular madness of our moment. Geer recorded it all by his lonesome at his home in West Asheville, North Carolina, where he (and his family) are riding out this unprecedented stretch of mandatory down time.
The funny-faced French existentialist and playwright J.P. Sartre famously said that “hell is other people” – or he had one of his characters say it, at least. And while we could debate what that actually means, in terms of how our interactions with others and our awareness of their own consciousness and perspective causes us suffering and anguish, on another level it is true that the boiled-down wisdom of the quote, that other people are the worst, is hard to argue with. In this time of global crisis, there are particular people – irresponsible leaders, psychopaths, compulsive liars, greedy fucks – that seem to be the worst of the worst. The most hellish. And yet, as we all hole up in our homes, trying our best to ride out the spread of Covid-19, trying to avoid getting our loved ones sick, trying not to panic over the immolation of the global economy, the effects of isolation and solitude start to weigh on some of us. We’re all going crazy. And some of us are going crazy alone.
Today Glide is excited to premiere Drunken Prayer’s new video for “Crazy Alone,” a playfully loco tune about losing your shit. With no other choice, Geer recorded this song all by himself, adding his own layered vocal harmonies to add a dreamy tone to this meditation on isolation. Geer’s simple lyrics capture the feelings we are all dealing with, even if we are hunkered down with others, in a way that is both ethereal and haunting. Mixing a slowed down style of sunny, Brian Wilson-esque pop with the laid back bluesy minimalism of JJ Cale, the song is strangely calming in a cathartic kind of way that expresses our collective frustration. To make the video, Geer filmed his friends and neighbors around West Asheville as they practiced social distancing. Despite the weirdness of the visuals, which are all too familiar to most of us by now, there is still a sense of community that can be felt in the smiles of the video’s participants.
Geer describes the process behind recording the song and shooting the video:
“‘Crazy Alone’ was written and recorded in the midst of current social distancing and impending lockdown. The idea for the video was inspired by Jamie Harmonnn’s (@amuricaworld) Memphis quarantine portraits. The song and the visual concept seemed like natural partners, so I put a shout-out on social media asking friends if they’d be open to house by house video drive-bys. The response was mighty, more than we could handle over the course of a day, but we drove around and got as many shots as we could. My wife Christa de Mayo and I drove around Asheville filming our community from a distance, behind shut windows and closed doors. Everyone was hungry and happy for interaction and distraction, if only for a moment from across the street. It was an emotional day but bittersweet is sweet all the same.”
WATCH:
