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PWR BTTM's New Song Is A Real Tear-Jerker

Ebru Yildiz

The fabulously flamboyant duo PWR BTTM takes a melancholy turn on its latest single. The sweetly sentimental sounding "New Hampshire" ponders the end of everything, from a love affair to the birds in the sky and the burning sun. But it shrugs it all off as an inevitable evolution of any life. "Don't be sad," sings guitarist Ben Hopkins. "I've done my share of living."

"It's a song about greener grass," Hopkins tells NPR Music in an email. "I wrote it during a period of time where I hated where I lived and who I was there, and I just felt so helpless that I figured whenever I did inevitably wither away, the parties that be could ship me somewhere better. Reflecting on it, the hopelessness I felt was actually in me, and the place I was in or where I wanted to be couldn't help things if I wasn't willing to help myself first."

PWR BTTM originally wrote "New Hampshire" for last year's full-length debut, Ugly Cherries, but eventually scrapped the cut until now. Last month the duo released another one-off single called "Projection." PWR BTTM is scheduled to return to the studio in September to record a sophomore full-length, which they hope to put out in 2017.

You can see PWR BTTM play a live version of "New Hampshire" from a session at NPR station WFUV.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.
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