UK singer-songwriter Billie Marten made her new album Dog Eared within a thriving creative community in upstate New York, and the singles so far have been fantastic. She offered up another one today, a casual sigh of a song called "Leap Year" that drifts along as though buoyed by gusts of graceful melancholia. She wrote it in bed on Leap Day 2024; it's billed as Marten's first non-autobiographical song, the story of a couple who can only get together every four years when February 29 comes around again.
Marten explains:
This is what happens when you’re having a sick day in bed but your mind wanders off somewhere dreamy and there’s no stopping it. "Leap Year" is the first fictional love song that I’ve written - but lain over the top of such a traditional structure and songwriting form. I had just been listening to a lot of 1920s/30s music for a project and I remember thinking, "what would happen if I did it like they did it?"
Listen below, and stick around for Sam Evian's subtly spectacular guitar solo.
Dog Eared is out 7/18 on Fiction.
