The latest track to feature upon upcoming album Phantom Birds alongside previous single Something In My Eye, is a brilliantly jovial ode to Berry’s greatest loves. A brisk and vibrant rhythm guitar buoys the track along, while Berry recites his myriad passions, the titular “Take a Bow” following each one as a delightfully warming refrain. A robustly wandering bassline skips throughout, besides a hazy lead guitar.
Several of these loves, similar to the rural single cover, speak of natural beauty; “late September chill”, “the rabbits in the field”. Others, meanwhile, are more personal, wide-ranging, and moving: “father and my mum, take a bow”, “the jukebox full of tunes, take a bow”.
As these suggest, Berry confirms Take a Bow as anode to “list of things I love and enjoy for different reasons. The list includes family, animals and the seasons. All very simple stuff.” Simple, however, proves deceptively blissful here.
Berry wrote, recorded, and produced the track, as he has with much of his new album Phantom Birds. This sees the musician not only performing vocals, but for the majority playing most of the instrumentation, on an album inspired by Bob Dylan’s trio of Nashville albums; being similarly simple yet grand and detailing regular everyday life, from a personal perspective or on a more expansive level. Phantom Birds, Berry’s eighth studio album after the acclaimed Television Themes, is released September 18th through Acid Jazz Records.
Listen to Take a Bow below.
