Photo credit: Greg Stephen Reigh
Iron & Wine premiered his “wildly sweet video” for “Bitter Truth” today exclusively with Billboard. Filmed at Chicago’s historic Thalia Hall, “Bitter Truth” is featured on the critically-acclaimed album Beast Epic, which earned Sam Beam his first Grammy nomination for “Best Americana Album.”
Directed by Hannah Welever, Billboard notes “the video an ode to the sweet nostalgia that comes with pre-pubescent school dances -- you know, the kind where girls and boys are not yet ready to make out -- with a movie-esque plot touches that involve teachers even getting involved in the amateur romance while Iron & Wine serves as the night's entertainment. The concept for the video was to create a juxtaposition between adult conceptions of love, as in the lyrics of “Bitter Truth,” versus the younger more innocent kind.”
Telling Billboard, “My crew and I had an amazing time creating such a nostalgic moment from our adolescence. There's something really poetic about how we deal with our emotions at different ages. Using the song as a backbone, we were able to revisit this window of time full of excitement and wonder, and compare it to a more pragmatic present-day self,” Welever described. "Relationships evolve and shift constantly and I find that to be such a ubiquitous, human characteristic I find in Sam's music."
Meanwhile, Iron & Wine just unveiled his Spotify Sessions: Singles performances including “About A Bruise” from Beast Epic along with a cover of Edie Brickell’s “What I Am.” Beam also sat down recently to discuss his thoughts behind the music from the album.
Tomorrow night (2/16), Iron & Wine will conclude his European leg of the Beast Epic Tour in London at the Eventim Apollo.
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