Premiere: Colin Cutler seeks answers from the great beyond with ‘Run to the River’

With half the song in his back pocket, Colin Cutler was driving down 421 to Pittsboro for a gig, along with Jonathan Byrd and Khallori, when it struck him. He needed to finish the song so he could play it that night (and then record it the next day). Born out of that drive, “Run to the River” draws stylistic influences from such songs as “Down to the River to Pray,” famously recorded by Alison Krauss for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Rihannon Giddens’ “We Could Fly.” He proceeded to funnel in John Prine and Michael Hurley for “some unexpectedly bizarre images,” as Cutler puts it.

What results is one of the year’s most profound and poignant odes to humanity’s sojourn to find truth and purpose in existence. Premiering today, “Run to the River” also calls to Flannery O’Connor’s 1953 short story The River, a gothic tale about a young boy who’s baptized and later drowns, floating away in the river. Cutler sculpts out his own singular story, as he “traces a person’s journey to find spiritual meaning in the city of pleasure, in the nature of the country, and in the church,” he tells B-Sides & Badlands, “but he finds them all containing the same dangers and learns to be content with the questions and constant change of the river.”

The song’s initial roots came from the unlikeliest of places. He explains, “I have a lot of friends who are pig farmers, and my partner (who I met through the farmer’s market) works at Pine Trough Branch, a small pork and beef farm near Reidsville. I was helping her farmsit one day, and one of the hogs pushed a sow into the electric fence and jumped over her to get out. Let me tell you, when a 500-pound critter comes barreling at you, you get to thinking about a lot of things pretty quick. That ended up in the song, and the element of the album cover design I’ve received the most compliments on is definitely the pig.”

“That river is wide, that river is deep / It’s got a long way to run / Before it rolls into the sea,” he sings over plucky banjo, his voice booming with a tenor’s quake. “I hear paradise is far away, but I’ll follow its call / Down to the river to pray.” Through the song, Cutler exacts his performance with a galvanized weight, tied and bound with enough crushing power to shatter the heart. He later asks in the chorus, “Is it wide, is it deep enough to wash my sins away?” Such a razor-sharp inquiry lingers in the brain, and while he may not have the answer, he learns to accept that whatever will be will be.

“Run to the River” samples a forthcoming record, titled Tarwater, expected October 31 via Bandcamp. It’ll hit streaming later on November 3. The project is co-produced with Benjy Johnson inside Earthtones Recording Studio in Greensboro, North Carolina. You won’t want to sleep on this one.

Listen to “Run to the River” below.

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