VIDEO PREMIERE: The New Earth Farmers Lean into the Protest Song with Soulful Rocker “Oh Mary”

The New Earth Farmers duo Nicole Storto and Paul Knowles offered up some pensive narratives of the 2020s dreamscape on the 2021 EP Into The Great Unknown. They got help from James Deprato, Kevin T White (Chuck Prophet Mission Express), and Nigel Twist (The Alarm) to round out the sound. The band recorded a new extended EP during the spring of 2022 in Napa, CA (Boxer Lodge) and Berkeley, CA.

Their latest album The Good Ones Got Away releases on March 4th, 2023 and is their first full record as the New Earth Farmers. They were previously called New American Farmers and before that, Mars Arizona. The music on the album leans into rock and roll more than previous collections. Known for lyrics that help conjure an atmosphere, their vocal sound is also unique in that the duo will switch the lead/harmony lines multiple times during a song. “We can double track the vocals in our live shows with both of us singing the melody,” Knowles mentions. “It’s hard to tell who is doing what sometimes.”

Today Glide is premiering the video for “Oh Mary,” one of the standout tracks on the new album. The song begins with an organ intro that washes over you, it soon becomes the kind of catchy folk-rocker that would make Tom Petty smile. There is a soulfulness to this tune that might come from the organ and piano, the religious references, or some combination of both. We also get some fine guitar solos to help this tune ascend into expansive rock territory. Lyrically, it also connects to our troubled times to give it a certain level of relevant potency.

Knowles talks about the song, “Oh Mary” below:

It starts out as a beautiful dream then we get hit with some unsettling news. This song was partly a reaction to the whole abortion ruling and the whole ugly male authoritarianism of it all. It’s hard for me to see how some women buy into it. It’s my first feminist song. That one came out pretty quick. It’s also a protest song against Christian Nationalism. Mary is Jesus’ mother in this one and I imagined her bragging about her son turning the water into wine. I think some people like to think of Jesus as some kind of magician, and I never got that message at all. Mary is also the woman that buys into the male authoritarianism and becomes an advocate for the oppression for whatever reason. Not unlike a certain Supreme Court Justice.

WATCH:

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