The Decemberists have released "All I Want Is You," the third pre-release track from the band's album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, due June 14.
"'All I Want Is You' is a love song. An unapologetic, wear-it-on-its-sleeve love song. I don't write a ton of those, at least not in this vein. The song grew out of the finger picking pattern - 'Don't want pretty poses...' - and I just followed that lead," Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy said in a statement. "In the end, it just kind of wrote itself. It's so bare bones, it lived for a long time in my songwriting notebook, kind of in hiding, before I got up the courage to put it out there. It shares a title and hook with many songs that have come before it, but I like to think I'm merely adding my own take to that tradition."
The sparse track, that begins with Meloy accompanied by a lone acoustic guitar before more instrumentation and backing vocals join in, clocks in at a mere two-minutes and 38-seconds. That's significant when you consider the previous track the band released from the album, "Joan in the Garden" is 19-minutes and 20-seconds long.
Meloy recently revealed on his Substack, Colin Meloy's Machine Shop, that the song was "seven years in the making." He writes, "If you followed my studio diaries, you'll know that 'Joan' required a lot of our labors and attentions. I'm sure you can hear that in the finished track. But the recording of the song was only the last little effort in a journey that goes back over six years."
The song features former R.E.M. member Mike Mills on piano and backing vocals. Mills' participation comes after his former bandmate, guitarist Peter Buck, played on three songs from The Decemberists' 2011 album The King Is Dead. The Decemberists have also been known to cover R.E.M. songs in the past, including the album track "Cuyahoga," which the band performed during a session for public radio station KCRW back in 2011.
Mills isn't the only guest on the new album. The first track released from As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, "Burial Ground," features James Mercer of the Shins on backing vocals.
The band will support As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again - a double-LP and their first album since splitting with Capitol Records and returning to their indie roots - with a U.S. tour that kicks off with a sold out show April 30 at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, N.Y. The Decemberists' U.S. dates run through Aug. 3 at the McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, Ore.
John Moen, drummer of The Decemberists, is also a member of Eyelids.
