Premiere: Michelle LeBlanc conjures up astonishing visage of ‘A Good Man’ -

Waiting is the hard part. We’re impatient creatures by design, thwarted by what we perceive as the just and right timetable of things. Even romantic endeavors fall prey to our dogged discontent. With new single “A Good Man,” premiering today, Nashville-residing country singer and songwriter Michelle LeBlanc empties out her dreams, a cup full of stars if you will, into a rapturous, god-sent display of a true love. “I’d been waiting for you to come along / Long days, empty nights spent awake,” she opens the golden envelope of blissful imaginations. The acoustic guitar works in feathered brushes behind LeBlanc’s angelic vocal cords, sweeping across time and space for a reflection of what is soon to come to pass.

“Wonderin’ what’s wrong with my heart / That would keep you away, forever apart,” she sings, her voice trickling upon a velvety patchwork quilt. Even as the ache in her heart seems to ease with each syllable, the conviction remains ripe and pierces the listener with a glistening sword of feeling. “This song was kind of an exercise in manifesting my dream guy ⏤ the feeling I want to feel, the sense of gratitude and appreciation that comes when the right one shows up at the right time and sticks around (and also I’m ready to let him),” LeBlanc writes to B-Sides & Badlands over email. “The feeling of safety and faith in the universe that you experience when someone so meant to be appears opposite you. At the time I wrote it, it was about someone in particular, but our lives haven’t seemed to line up timing-wise, and I just don’t know if they ever will. So, I’m practicing a lot of surrender about that situation at this point.”

Issued right now in this moment, LeBlanc feels the weight of a “divinely-timed” snapshot of herself, the mirror reflecting back shards all across the universe. “Whether the person from my past comes back ready this time or there is someone new, I am really feeling like the good guy is about to show up in my life,” she says.

In culling together such vast influences as Patty Griffin, Brandi Carlile and Stevie Nicks, LeBlanc roots herself to the ground and allows the song’s production to swirl in silver-strewn sparkler emissions, the dazzling diamonds shooting up into the night sky before falling far and away into the unknown. Originally more roots in nature, “A Good Man” was injected with a new vivacity thanks to producer Josh Kaler, whose handy work strengthens the bare bones of the song itself. “I’m not the greatest at having the overall vision, which is why I love collaboration so much. All I knew is that I wanted this song to have a cosmic feel to it,” says LeBlanc. “I let him run with it, and I love what we came up with. I think it’s so pretty and really hits on the vulnerability of wanting something so badly and then letting it show up for you.”

She later tears down the facade she had long constructed to keep the love out, a by-product of the unexpectedly kiss of Cupid’s plush arrow stream. “I never planned it / Your sudden crash landing / Wasn’t looking for moreI closed every door,” she sings as she bites into the sweet nectarine. “A Good Man” also arrests LeBlanc’s theatrical background, a melody rich in melodrama but firmly planted in humanity, and as it ascends into the heavens, she finds further solace in what is peeking over the horizon.

“A Good Man” officially drops this Friday, April 5.

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