City and Colour: Meant To Be

By Kerry Doole

City and Colour - Meant To Be (Still Records): The large and loyal following Dallas Green (aka City and Colour) has cultivated will be thrilled to learn a new album is coming in 2023. This advance track is the first new music Green has shared since the acclaimed 2019 album A Pill For Loneliness.

Green typically digs deep emotionally with his material, and that is certainly the case with this new cut. A label bio notes that "Meant To Be is a song Dallas Green was not sure he could, or would, write. The song is Green's elegy to dear friend, Karl Bareham, and City and Colour's longtime producer and engineer who tragically drowned when the band was on tour in Australia in 2019."

"One minute I was in Sydney doing press for the record that me and Karl made together. The next minute, I’m finding out my best friend is gone,” recalls Green. “The following 24 hours were a blur. I boarded a plane from Sydney to the Gold Coast and made my way to the morgue to identify Karl’s body. That was the hardest moment I've had in my entire life. It changed me forever."

“My coping process when I go through something is to write about it as a way to help myself through it and then hopefully, other people can relate to it and find what they need to help them out of it too," Green explains. "That's how I've always done it. But this felt different. How do I write a song about my best friend who is gone?”

With help from longtime friend and co-producer Matt Kelly (now part of the touring lineup in Green's other band, Alexisonfire), he persevered, and he does his departed comrade real justice with this affecting elegy.

The song gradually builds in intensity, with an effective blend of acoustic and electric guitars complementing Green's compelling vocal. The repetition of the phrase "I don't believe this is how it's meant to be" captures his anguish over the personal tragedy.

Meant To Be is City and Colour's first new original song since A Pill For Loneliness, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Album Chart marking the fourth consecutive #1 studio album. The album enjoyed success worldwide notably the UK, Germany, Brazil and Australia, and also had impressive chart numbers in the US.

City and Colour heads down under to Australia for an extensive tour in Jan. 2023.

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Publicity: Cristina Fernandes, Listen Harder