Premiere: Shane Palko weighs life’s unpredictability with new song, ‘Somehow’

“I found out what was right only by getting it wrong,” writes Rachel Joyce in her gut-pummeling book, “The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.” Through the eyes of the kind-hearted, perhaps far too naive, and sensitive Queenie Hennessy, you begin to unfurl truths about living, loving and dying from which the reader comes to greater understanding of their own journey. Indie-folk singer-songwriter Shane Palko finds himself and a version of such enriching knowledge through his musical adventures across the Tanzania earth – collecting insight and human encounters in his path. “Put so much faith in manmade machines / Shatter our plans, give birth to our dreams,” he extends on a new song called “Somehow,” premiering today.

“You don’t know what’s happening…” the frankness of his words cuts into his throat. His vocal feathers and fades, only an acoustic guitar seems to bear the weight of his trembling heart. Soon, he’s overcome with emotion, and only “ooo”s and “ahhh”s escape his lungs. “Somehow” releases all the pent up worry, the mind-straining angst, exhaustion from simply surviving into vapors that abruptly dissipate into nothingness. “Somehow it works,” he sings.

He’s singing about life, and as well-intentioned as our plans may be, little is ever guaranteed. Alongside producer Zuli Tums and Tanzania Parliament Member Kigola, Palko trekked across the East African country for something greater – something intangible that called to him and that would forever change his life. “This song just spilled out of me at the beginning of a long day near the end of a long journey. We had been recording music with people that had never gotten the chance to record before,” Palko writes to B-Sides & Badlands over email.

“Somehow” hauls an astute, overpowering weariness. Even as lilting as the melody might be, his voice deceives him and hints at ancient truths which, perhaps, were soaked into his work from the very beginning. “I had also written and recorded nearly an entire album of my own songs, collaborating with local artists, and finding all types of new inspirations. We returned to Dar Es Salaam,” he continues, detailing this revelatory trip. “On the long bus journey, I watched my new guitar fall out of the cargo space under the bus and hit the road. It was the only new guitar I have ever owned. I just got it from a sponsorship deal from earlier that summer. Godin Guitars called me up and offered me a deal. I asked for the cheapest guitar that would plug in; it arrived the day before I caught a flight for East Africa. I don’t put much stock in expensive gear, but man that guitar sounds like a million bucks.”

With minimal resources, Zuli and many others turned one of the convent rooms into a makeshift recording studio to house “our pop-up project for a couple of days,” recalls Palko. “I laughed, wondering how we got there, and realizing that we were safely limping to the end of a beautiful and unplanned journey that was all culminating in a beautiful experience wherein we got to make so much music with so many people in different communities across Tanzania.”

Couches, beds and other furniture items strapped with duct tape became the studio, the life-blood of any musician’s art. “I took a break to pluck the guitar with some new music friends. We recorded the guitar right there in the entryway to the gym – with so many people trying not to laugh and echo in the background,” he stages the scene in vibrant detail. “Birds chirped overhead. Life is unpredictable. This song just sort of showed up, unannounced, and asked to be sung. In so many years of touring and playing music, I have seen so many plans and machines fail and fall apart. Time and again the goodness of strangers has picked up the shattered pieces of my plan and sent me safely on my way again. I have learned that when you do not try to drive life, it takes you on the most beautiful roads.”

Through life’s terrible, shivering bleakness, there is a rainbow awaitin’ once the storm splits. Just ask Palko. “The world’s got your back unless you’ve got its throat; it’s what you want that will happen to you. I know, cause it happened to me,” he offers.

“Somehow” is lifted from Palko’s forthcoming album called Swahili Surreal, which was recorded in numerous Tanzanian studios. All proceeds from the record, a joint endeavor with the Tanzanian Parliament to help provide studio access to rural communities in the country, will go to construction a recording studio in Mafinga.

Listen below:

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