Video: Kevin Morby, ‘This Is a Photograph’

Kevin Bronson on March 3rd, 2022

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Mortality’s shadow often intervenes at unexpected times, and it was one of those occasions that was the inspiration for Kevin Morby’s new album “This Is a Photograph.”

In early 2020, at a family dinner, his father collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital. While he was being treated, the young Morby found himself diving into old family photos, including one of his proud, bare-chested father posing on the front lawn. “In the photo he looks young and full of confidence, puffing his chest out at the camera as if he were looking for a fight,” Morby says. “It was not lost on me that this was the same chest, just hours before, I had seen the ambulance put a stethoscope against as he lay on the kitchen floor of my sisters house.”

The experience stuck with the singer-songwriter, who then decamped to Memphis, immersing himself in the city’s lore and writing songs. He eventually recorded them with producer Sam Cohen, first in upstate New York and then in Memphis, with a cast of collaborators old and new.

The album, Morby’s seventh, finds the consistently inventive songwriter delving into Americana, and the frenetic title track spouts lyrical vignettes that are every bit as vivid as the photographs he references. The song was made on the last day of recording and features Stax Academy of Music alumni on backing harmonies. “Sam Cohen and I wanted to throw everything at the wall with this one,” Morby says. “It’s about the battle every family faces, that of chasing the clock, to live our lives and hold onto one another for as long as possible. That, and the dreams that come with being a young family in America and where those dreams eventually end up.”

The album arrives May 13 via Dead Oceans.

||| Watch: The video for “This Is a Photograph”