In a few weeks, MC Taylor’s North Carolina indie-folk project Hiss Golden Messenger will return with Jump For Joy, a new album written and recorded during short breaks from touring, in that golden moment when touring suddenly became possible again. We’ve already posted the energized singles “Nu-Grape” and “Shinbone,” and now Hiss Golden Messenger has also dropped the new LP’s opening track.

“20 Years And A Nickel,” the song that begins Jump For Joy, starts with MC Taylor singing that there’s no such thing as a simple song, that words can change meanings over time, before his band breaks into a choogling boogie that reminds me of the Grateful Dead. It’s a contemplative tune, but it’s the happy kind of contemplative. If you’re lucky enough to have a patio, this is music to play on your patio while you have a beer after work. (I don’t have a patio, but I do have a front stoop, and I might have to give this one a shot.)

In a press release, MC Taylor says:

If the 14 songs on Jump For Joy might be heard as the Book of Michael Crow, a temporal travelogue, of sorts, that traces the ecstasy and sorrow of a life lived alongside music through a character very similar to me, then perhaps “20 Years and a Nickel” is the prologue. Not only is it the first song, but it also lays out two opposing perspectives that I am lately trying to hold in my hands, and brain, simultaneously. Namely, after twenty years and a nickel — my longhand for 25 years, although I guess I’ve been writing songs even longer than that — I’m a little bit of an expert on the form and I have no idea how to write a song. Is there such a thing as a simple song? Maybe. But they don’t come easy.

Listen below.

Jump For Joy is out 8/25 on Merge Records.