SONG PREMIERE: Adam Gaffney Intersects Raw Honesty With Lively Honky Tonk On “Conversation Blues”

Sobriety, love, and the lack of both are just a few troublesome, deeply personal truths alt-country troubadour Adam Gaffney has been grappling with over the past few years. Like any great artist, though, Gaffney found answers and solace through his music. The results are the heartbreaking, painfully vulnerable Product of Another Sad Song, the latest LP from Gaffney and his band, The Balladeers. The daring 17-song LP is set to arrive on May 8, three years after Gaffney’s Golden Country LP. You can feel the tension in the air coursing through the windows as the release of Gaffney’s raw honesty nears, but before we are immersed in this project, the artist delivers one last preview. 

Today, Glide is proud to premiere “Conversation Blues,” (below) the fourth and final single before Product of Another Sad Song. The rollicking honky tonk jam session doubles as a conversation between Gaffney and himself through the perspective of the ones who watched his addictions take over from the outside. Gaffney uses his natural, infectious melodic knack to highlight the darkness that clouded his brain for years, finally able to speak on the grimness of it all. Glide has the world premiere of “Conversation Blues” below. 

“I was playing a lot and gigging five nights a week. I had left my job the summer of 2019 and was just playing music and was probably playing more then than I am now. I had some momentum going on with music. Then, poof, it was gone,” explains Gaffney when asked about Conversation Blues. “Just before everything was shut down due to COVID in 2020, I had moved into the day room in a friend of mine’s house in South City, St. Louis. It was a pretty small room. Maybe 8×8. I was cooped up there during the lockdown and just rambling thoughts on paper. I wrote this sometime around the summer of 2020. I didn’t really know what else to do but write. This was the only song that made it out of those days. I don’t think about those COVID years all that much, really. It was like a pause in the simulation or something.” 

We should all be thankful that Gaffney kept this tune in his back pocket for all those years. Years removed from the world stopping, and the loneliness and helplessness that plagued working artists like Gaffney can be found in “Conversation Blues.” This is far from someone forcing themselves to remember trauma for the sake of art, but more so a cathartic release of pent-up emotions that had been brewing in Gaffney, simply awaiting the right time to strike. 

“I try to put as many rods in as many fires as I can handle now. I went into the trades and became a maintenance man. COVID really gave me a different mentality. Like, why should I put all my money on black? I just want to be comfortable and do the stuff I want to do,” continues Gaffney. “I try to stay busy and learn as many skills as I can. So now I tour when I want, and I work when I’m not touring.” 

With a fresh lease on life and a newfound sense of artistry, Product of Another Sad Song is gearing up to be a landmark release for Gaffney. “Conversation Blues” is the result of deep self-analysis and fearlessness, putting every ounce of yourself out there for the world to see, which seems to be a winning formula for Gaffney.