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This was our first single from the album. I gotta say, I always hated that mix and am thrilled with how it sounds now ☺

The title comes from the prayer. I grew up with it around, on a postcard I think. I always liked it because it’s about surviving the real world, having the right intention, a compass. It’s meant here as a promise to yourself not to lose your youth and innocence. (Good luck with that!)

Among other things, A New Devotion was and is a homage, which some people do not like. Making music that sounds like it comes from another time was deliberate and reverent—a ‘devotion’ if you want. There are various breadcrumbs to other bands and songs spread throughout—Set Me Free, Love Me Do here… On one level, the song is a nostalgic look back at discovering music as a teenager, the sweet suburban blackness/midnight mass that is riding home on the bus from somewhere with a walkman blasting. The outtro hints at the ominous things to come once you leave that teenage Eden, however. There is another city here…
Silas has an inkling something is wrong and the truth will come from his subconscious. It’s the only exit after all. You may not be able to stop ageing but never become a hologram of your best self!

-Trevor

lyrics

I was a boy in a place not far from here
Walled in from the noise,
There my nights were dark and clear
Sweet suburban blackness
Beautiful and true
Nights like midnight masses
Silent offerings to you
Now I’m a hologram
An image of the man I used to be
At seventeen

Speak to me
Set me free
Blind me with the boyhood myth
I seek in you
Can I return?
Can I unlearn?
Oh I know it’s wrong
But I still go on crawling back to you
Crawling back to you
Crawling back to you

I was a boy in a house not far from here
I played the saddest joy
You put music in my ear
Shapeless teen desire
Alcoholic dream
Flow through headphone wires
Love me do and set me free
Now I’m a hologram
An image of the man I used to be
At seventeen

Used to be
Used to be
Used to be

I see the seasons passing
I feel the weight of wasted years
I’m frightened by the feeling
There is another city here
And I can’t find the exit
Cause there’s no way out on my feet
There is a new devotion
I must find it in my sleep…
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep

credits

from A New Devotion (20th Anniversary Edition), released November 3, 2023
Song by Trevor Anderson (SOCAN/ASCAP)

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The High Dials Montréal, Québec

The High Dials are an indie pop band from Montreal.
While their melodic sensibility, harmonies and jangling guitars owe an obvious debt to the 60s and power pop groups, they also draw upon shoegaze, new wave and folk sounds to create rich and varied albums. Their most recent album “Primitive Feelings” is a predatory summer mix of lo-fi grooves, acid rock guitars and razor-sharp humour. ... more

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