Premiere: Spencer Kilpatrick pens lo-fi ‘Dear Carolyn’ letter -

We all have that one that got away. While maybe the relationship burnt itself out, leaving nothing but ash and a charred outline of what once was, we look back fondly now. The memories flood back like a tidal wave on the beach of Miami, the sands rolling and crashing in fizzy sea foam, lingering along our path of broken shells and twigs, trinkets of a time gone by. The past has a way of falling down around our eyes like a pair of rose-colored glasses, and that’s fine. It’s better to remember the sweet rather than be made cynical from the bitter. Indie-rock singer-songwriter Spencer Kilpatrick recalls one such galavant of romance with his lo-fi, folk-leaning song “Dear Carolyn,” premiering today, a slow-burn which mingles spoken-word with soothing, melodic cadence.

“Dear Carolyn, the way you look me in my eyes makes me nervous / And I’m damn sure it’s not the first time you heard this / And I’m damn sure it’s not the last time either,” he sings, melding a simple story of being out on the road, living his lonesome but fulfilling musician’s life and an honest, heartfelt meditation on a former lover. The performer, making waves in the Nevada music scene, then proceeds to recollect parts of their younger days. “Do you still work over at that daycare on Rosston? Do you still fucking hate it there with all those bosses? Do you still make your ramen with scrambled eggs?” he questions, guitar and tender tambourine twinkling in the background.

The song is sparse and wistful, allowing each syllable to live and breathe on its own. It’s unhurried, sharp and instant, hanging onto the emotion for dear life. As Kilpatrick puts it, “Dear Carolyn” was an “exercise in inconvenient creating… or something like that. I wrote the lyrics in the back of the [rock band] Failure Machine van on the way back from a couple gigs in Elko and recorded the music quickly on my phone before going to bed a few months later,” he tells B-Sides & Badlands of the song’s roots, stemming from cool spontaneity. Admittedly, the musician disliked “the graininess and sloppiness of it,” he says, “and more-so, hated the fact that this track was entirely my fault. After years of being in [the band] and having the recording process being a drunken, hyper-collaborative field trip of sorts, it was weird to think that the song was written in my journal and recorded quietly in my bedroom. It felt boring and sad and lazy in a lot of ways.”

It is that languid, almost unconcerned, place that makes “Dear Carolyn” is somehow gigantic in its musical stretches, evocative and intimately appealing. “The improvised and personal feel of the lyrics was very intentional. It’s the kind of thing that Keith Damron from El Camino Sutra and Eric Smith from Joan & The Rivers (two of my heroes) do really, really well, and I wanted to try it myself,” he says. “Getting away from the verse-chorus-verse arrangement was difficult for me. I had a tough time not using the outro as a hook mid-song, but ultimately, I like the stream-of-consciousness feel of it.”

“Dear Carolyn” anchors a forthcoming EP, due out in June, which Kilpatrick promises to include tons more electric guitar and “will be a little more dynamic, musically, but lyrically, will be similar,” he teases. The new project follows last year’s gripping Rhonda EP, which also served as a reprieve from his work in Failure Machine.

Listen below:

Check out a slew of upcoming tour dates:

Thursday, June 7 – Reno, NV – Lincoln Lounge

Friday, June 8 – Sacramento, CA – Shine Cafe

Saturday, June 9 – Monterey, CA – Pierce Ranch Vineyards Tasting Room

Sunday, June 10 – Red Bluff, CA – Red Bluff, CA – Downtown Ale House

Wednesday, June 13 – Elko, NV – DLC Gallery

Thursday, June 14 – Salt Lake City, UT – Albatross Records

Saturday, June 16 – Cheyenne, WY – Metro Coffee CO.

Monday, June 18 – Milwaukee, WI – MobCraft Brewing

Tuesday, June 19 – Madison, WI – Knuckledown Saloon

Wednesday, June 20 – Chicago, IL – contact for details