Charlie Parr - "Last of the Better Days Ahead" [Official Music Video]

Watch the official music video for "Last of the Better Days Ahead," the title track and first single off Charlie Parr's upcoming Smithsonian Folkways debut.
'Last of the Better Days Ahead' available July 30, 2021, on CD, 2xLP, and digital.
Pre-order/stream:
Smithsonian Folkways: folkways.si.ed...
All other platforms: orcd.co/charli...
Lyrics:
Money can’t buy back that ʼ64 Falcon that you sold in your 20s and then regretted it was gone because you thought it contained some meaning or some answers to a life that you never bothered to question or even take a good close look at
And it broke your heart to see how it had been so important from the feeling of the steering wheel to the rubber on the road and now it’s grown to unrealistic proportions in your mind
Now you’re in your 50s why can’t you forget how the chrome bumpers shined in the sun if you could just go back even for a minute you could forget how you don’t even know what it was you’ve lost
Why do you always feel so empty in spite of all you have were those feelings you remember even real and were they honestly about some junky old Falcon or any other thing that you could own
Because now it’s all so stale and you feel so very old like you’ve taken all your chances and tossed them all aside for some stupid piece of metal like shiny bits of trash that line the stolen nest of a greedy neighborhood crow
So you drive back to your hometown to visit with your past but nothing looks the same anymore except you can see all that you squandered while you were shining all that chrome you were handed all you needed without cost but you were too blind to see it and you took it all for granted now you wanna complain-tell me just what was it that you’ve lost
And now you start to panic and your gas is running low and you need to find some meaning before you’re stranded on the road and when the engine finally dies near a soybean field at dusk you just sit and watch the sunset turn the entire sky to rust
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Charlie Parr’s newest album, Last of the Better Days Ahead, is a collection of powerful new songs about how one looks back on a life lived, as well as forward on what’s still to come. Its spare production foregrounds Parr’s poetic lyricism, his expressive, gritty voice ringing clear over deft acoustic guitar playing that references folk and blues motifs in Parr’s own exploratory, idiosyncratic style. When it comes to what it all means, Parr says it best:
“Last of the Better Days Ahead is a way for me to refer to the times I’m living in. I’m getting on in years, experiencing a shift in perspective that was once described by my mom as ‘a time when we turn from gazing into the future to gazing back at the past, as if we’re adrift in the current, slowly turning around.’ Some songs came from meditations on the fact that the portion of our brain devoted to memory is also the portion responsible for imagination, and what that entails for the collected experiences that we refer to as our lives. Other songs are cultivated primarily from the imagination, but also contain memories of what may be a real landscape, or at least one inspired by vivid dreaming. The album represents one full rotation of the boat in which we are adrift-looking ahead for a last look at the better days to come, then being turned around to see the leading edge of the past as it fades into the foggy dreamscape of our real and imagined histories.”
Charlie Parr: www.charlieparr...
Facebook: / charlie.parr.music
Twitter: / thecharlieparr
Instagram: / charlie.parr
Smithsonian Folkways: folkways.si.edu
Facebook: / smithsonianfolkwaysrec...
Twitter: / folkways
Instagram: / smithsonianfolkways
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[@Jack-tx2ve]

I'd imagine from listening to this music Charlie is one of the nicest chaps you'd have the pleasure of meeting.

[@Caramou]

Oh Charlie it's good to have you, writing these songs from your heart, thanks so much.

[@jeffcmo1957]

This song hits on so many levels.

[@christrue]

God bless this man...

[@nikkimartin6430]

So excited to see Charlie teaming up with Folkways.

[@LongBeachHuntington]

Great video. Salton Sea is a magical place. Almost as magical as Charlie.

[@sikamoreify]

Beautiful footage of the Salton Sea and couldn't find a better song to fit the landscape!

[@duhluth]

Damn Charlie....so fucking proud of you 💜

[@bendummitt888]

Well played, Charlie...

[@freefreespeech6722]

Way to call out the apathy of previous generations with this one, thank you Charlie! Gentle, talented man you are healing lost souls. Sadly it will fly over their heads but genius typically does.

[@aaronbaird3533]

Stunning!

[@elizafeely3171]

SO good

[@ThePeaceableKingdom]

I had a '64 Falcon, the Ranchero, the pickup. Had to sell it; miss that car. *Ouch.*

[@TheRex1970]

Great song, (& video good too) funniest part is how little music involved

[@calukimbo9994]

I had a '64 Falcon

[@mattyice9300]

Alpha lad

[@BeeHiveHeat28]

A 12-string picker being nostalgic for a '64 Falcon. Kind of got me nostalgic for both. Nicely done, Charlie! It do matter, what we decide to care about, whenever we do. Mine was a 1960 first, which I painted with 1968 Cadillac paint. Then I got a 1965 Falcon Sprint. I thought I was really stepping up, even though the Mustang was "the" thing.