It's been about a year since Bartees Strange released last year's excellent Album Of The Week Farm To Table. He's done a lot since then, including hanging out with us at our Range Life SXSW party and playing a bunch of RE:SET traveling dates. Today, Strange is performing at Newport Folk Festival, where he debuted a 19th-century-themed song called "Homestead."
"In 1867, right, lot of bad shit was going on," said Strange, who was not on guitar, as he'd recently hurt his finger during the RE:SET tour. "Slavery was going on. The Civil War was going on. Lot of western expansion. No one has a place to fuckin' live. So the government was like, 'We're gonna make the Homestead Act. Put your stake in the ground, you got acres now. Build a family.' Through all that, though, I still can't find a place to live. Everything's too expensive. So this song is about that."
Strange was also super-excited to play Newport Folk Fest. Sharing to his Instagram Story, Strange wrote: "I have wanted to play this since I was a little star in the sky when we crash landed on planet earth I hoped I'd get to go to this thing. Todae is the dae."
Watch Strange perform "Homestead" below.
