With only a few full-lengths to his name, there’s already a noticeable duality to the songs JW Francis writes, which likely reflect his dual status as a licensed New York City tour guide and as someone who’s hiked 1,500 miles of the Appalachian Trail. In fact, before embarking on his most recent US tour last month he released a one-off single chronicling his experience on the trail while reinterpreting the woodsman’s instrument of choice, the acoustic guitar, for something much more metropolitan in its invocation of the lo-fi pop trailblazer by Jonathan Richman.
And Francis returns again on the tail end of that tour with another new single examining his songwriting process with equal amounts of scrutiny. “Pretending” takes the shape of yet another micro-pop tune, this time focused on the delusional mindset sometimes needed in order to make it as an artist. “Pretending is a daily practice for me,” Francis admits. “I wrote this song about all the pretending that goes into making your dreams come true. Manifesting, pretending, imagining—all necessary parts of being a musician.”
The video for the track, meanwhile, sees Francis back in nature, clambering around a forest trail before the visual’s bad-trip conclusion. Check it out below, and expect more music and performances from Francis this summer—either before or after he canoes the entire length of the Mississippi River in July.
