Like most of us during the pandemic, Philip B. Price has had plenty of time to reflect on his version of the human condition. The result is a new solo album, “Oceans Hiding in Oceans,” which includes the song “Loneliness.” Listen, Dammit premieres the track today.
“Loneliness” is essentially a love song to, well, loneliness. “I never knew such a sweet love as you, my loneliness,” he sings, his vocals double-tracked over a melancholy mix of acoustic guitar, piano and string arrangements that evokes, in Price’s words, “a down-tempo ‘Jolene.’”
“The song emerged from the awfulness of isolation (mostly in my head because I live in a crowded house!),” says Price, who is married with a toddler. “At first it was a bit of a wail from the abyss until I decided to get friendly with this loneliness — and then it turned into something of a love song, and the object of my affection was somehow loneliness personified.”
Price, who also fronts the chamber-pop band Winterpills, traces the roots of the song back a couple of decades to what he describes as “a wee little nervous breakdown of sorts” he had in his twenties, when he found himself engaged “in a manic dialog with a 9-year-old feral child who lived in my chest.” They ended up, he says, putting the conversation on hold for 20-plus years, “until a global pandemic and fascism collided with toddler-exhaustion and anxiety.” Can relate, yes.
Anyway, the upshot for Price was a realization about the nature of loneliness. “The surprise for me was finding out what a solid companion one’s own loneliness can be, how it is nothing to be feared and that it will talk back to you, and also needs love as much as anyone,” he says.
And in case you were wondering about the feral child in Price’s chest, well, the kid turned out all right. “The 9-year-old feral child grew into a feral adult with a good fashion sense and encyclopedic knowledge of cocktails.”
As with its predecessor, 2019’s excellent “Bone Almanac,” Price sang and performed all the songs by himself on “Oceans Hiding in Oceans,” which is due Feb. 19 on Signature Sounds.