Actor, director, academic, author, poet and now musician, James Franco, is set to release his band Daddy's debut album Let Me Get What I Want on March 18 alongside fellow bandmate and old schoolmate Tim O'Keefe. The duo has a new Smiths-inspired song titled "Lime Green Dress."
According to Consequence of Sound, the 10-track album is filled with lyrics based on his poetry published in his debut collection titled Directing Herbert White: Poems. The seminal English new wave band, The Smiths, particularly inspire the songs and Franco even got the band's bassist, Andy Rourke, to play on a song released back in December titled "You Are Mine."
Where the first release alongside Rourke was appropriately more driving and rockish, "Lime-Green Dress" gets more atmospheric, utilizing those sonic synth sounds to create an atmosphere over top of the moving bass and drums.
Franco seems to utilize his poetry a little more obviously here, using repeated phrases to give them more weight. There's the obvious from the chorus, which repeats, "I do my best in a lime-green dress," but there's also the later line "I was in love with a cliché," sounding a little more reflective in an angsty high schooler kind of way.
"We loved the sound of the English New Wave, especially The Smiths," Franco said of the new song in a statement to Consequence of Sound. "The album was meant to reflect that, but with our own twists. The experiences of youth play so well into this sound. 'Lime Green Dress' is about the terror and frisson of losing one's innocence to the bad boy."
O'Keefe had this to say on the song, "'Lime Green Dress', one of the more melodic 'pop-ish' tracks from our upcoming album, combines elements that are spacious & atmospheric with elements that reflect more traditional pop/rock instrumentation. This produces a sound that at once feels close in proximity, while also feeling far off in the distance. To me, memories have a similar quality, which is why this sound was the perfect sound for one's memories of first love and temptation."
