To mark its one year anniversary, Mark Moldre has today released the fourth single and video clip from his acclaimed 2019 album Fever Dreams.
‘White Lightning’ is a raised-glass country sway, an intoxicating tale of love lost and found – with soft shuffling drums, woozy electric guitar and a loose and heady, end-of-the-night vibe.
‘White Lightning’ was a semi-finalist in the Americana category of the International Songwriting Competition (along with ‘How Long?’) from Fever Dreams. The competition is held annually with an esteemed panel of judges that include Tom Waits, Fleet Foxes, Tanya Tucker, Lonnie Liston Smith, Lukas Nelson, Irma Thomas, John Mayall, DJ Shadow and many more.
“White Lightning was inspired by an article that I read online about returned soldiers, drug addiction and the difficulties in returning home to everyday life while dealing with PTSD. The wives of these men were interviewed and they recalled in detail the hardships that they’d been forced to overcome. One in particular mentioned that her husband had tried to talk her into joining him in his addiction and she had almost followed him down the path of his final overdose. The catalyst for putting pen to paper originally was his story. White Lightning was apparently an old slang term for LSD…and once I wrote it into the chorus it stuck.”
The homemade, Wes Anderson-influenced video highlights Moldre’s visual creativity and noir aesthetic which combines footage of Moldre performing, with cut-out text and images – the perfect accompaniment to the impressionistic grit and grain of the song.
“Fever Dreams, an absolutely superb record… a superlative album from a songwriter who cites Tom Waits, Chet Baker and Bob Dylan amongst his myriad of influences” – Stuart Coupe (Rhythms Magazine)