Oklahoma-based singer-songwriter Samantha Crain feels the reverberations of her past on “An Echo,” the debut single from her upcoming album A Small Death.
As the first track released since her 2017 album You Had Me At Goodbye and a subsequent car accident that left Crain unable to operate any instruments for an extended period, “An Echo” shoulders the burden of her difficult reemergence while presenting a completely revitalized image of herself.
“This is such an important song to me and I feel it intensely every time I play it,” the Choctaw-American artist tells Billboard. “I wanted this to be the first song released from the new record because, somehow in just three verses, it documents the grieving of so many years of trauma and this feeling of finally getting to start this new phase of being.”
Fittingly, “An Echo” was the watershed moment on Crain’s path to recovery that empowered her to confront her current state and start her next project with a fresh perspective. “I had been so unwell that I wasn’t writing and couldn’t ever imagine being able to make another record,” she reveals, “so when this song came to me, I knew I had to get better so I could make the record that would cradle this song.”
The inspiring urgency that spilled out from the song is unmistakable with its hefty, considered lyricism and sparse, soulful instrumentation punctuated by an immaculate steel pedal slide guitar. The mournful reflection that characterizes the track also seems to shed light on what’s to come with A Small Death including the deeper considerations that Crain took while she was forced to separate her personal life from her lifelong musical pursuits.
The accompanying video, directed by Joanna Grace Babb, matches every carefully selected detail from the lyrics with a moving visual complement from the tense vending machine meeting to the speechless sideways glances between the two estranged leads. It’s a powerful and intimate portrayal that keeps the focus on Crain’s original message.
Crain shares, “The song hits on those relationships in your life that have so many complexities due to time and growth and change and non-communication, and Jo and I wanted to bring a visual picture of that feeling to pair with the song.”
With such direct songwriting and a straightforward visual to match, Crain makes it clear that this new phase is all about putting her truest self forward.
Catch the video for “An Echo” below.