David Corley – “Easy Mistake” (video) (Premiere)

The low, ragged voice of David Corley is of the kind one would expect could only come from many years of experiencing life and putting it into song. With Corley, such a guess would be on the money. At 53, he has plenty of years to his name, and ever since he was 20 he’s been honing his songcraft into a distinctive voice. Surprisingly, however, Available Light, his recently released studio LP, marks his first full-length recording. That fact is stunning; Corley sounds like the kind of guy who’s been in the studio for decades, a consummate natural. Comparisons to songwriting greats like Tom Waits and Lou Reed aren’t far off. Tunes like Available Lights‘ “Easy Mistake”, the video of which you can watch exclusively below, evoke the image of a weary songwriter looking back on all of his years in the world. His presence is a natural and authentic one, as any one of his songs evinces.

Corley tells PopMatters, “‘Easy Mistake’ was a funny little trick to write. I’d been listening to a lot of Lou Reed at the time, Magic and Loss, I think, and Coney Island Baby, and all those slow, sad tunes kind of got into me. I was just fooling around with the simple structures of some of those, and traveling this dark two-lane highway (old st.rd.43) out of my town (Lafayette) to Crawfordsville, Indiana. There was a classic old bar there called the Silver Dollar, that has since burned down. When I came up with ‘hopped up into my truck’, and ‘the sky, man, it’s so large, but I forgot the sound that love makes’, I had the song. The rest of it took about a half-an-hour to write. It’s simple, and true. About love, exes, good friends, and late-nights.”

Available Light is out now in North America; it will also be seeing a proper European release on 16 February via CRS/Continental Record Services. European listeners can also pre-order the LP through Bandcamp.