Anaïs Mitchell reminisces about a dearly departed friend in new single “On Your Way (Felix Song)”
It’s been eight years since we last had a new solo album from New England singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, but that’s okay. Between sweeping the Tony awards in 2018 with her musical Hadestown and co-founding the celebrated indie-roots band Bonny Light Horseman with Eric D. Johnson and Josh Kaufman, she’s been kind of busy.
But she does have a new record on the way — a self-titled LP dropping digitally on January 28th with a vinyl edition following on March 25th — and with teasers “Bright Star” and “Brooklyn Bridge” in the rearview, her latest single from the album hearkens back to those years when she wasn’t as busy. Or rather, it was a different kind of busy, the salad days of working your way through the creative industries for the first time, learning the ropes with boundless energy and ambition.
“On Your Way (Felix Song)” was written for Mitchell’s friend Felix McTeigue, who died unexpectedly in 2020, and its lyrics are steeped in scene-setting images of taking the MTA all around New York City, missing connections at home and in transit, and channeling creative energies in the studio and onstage. “We’ve come a way since the days when we made demos in the basement,” she sings.
“We briefly had the same manager in our early ‘hustling days’ of trying to get a songwriter career going,” Mitchell says in a press release. “I can picture us playing at the old Living Room on the lower east side, and me being one of five people in Felix’s audience, and vice versa. Felix was really fearless and present, he always had a guitar on his back, he was always writing something, he loved the act of just rushing headlong into writing, recording, not overthinking it. It’s a lesson I’ll return to for the rest of my life.”
Listen to “On Your Way” below — it’s a callback to early 00s singer-songwriter music in the best way — and watch a lively in-studio performance video. Pre-order and pre-save Anaïs Mitchellhere, and check out her tour dates below. While she’s not playing Philadelphia proper, she’ll be at Princeton, New Jersey’s McCarter Theater on February 12th with Bonny Light Horseman (who also serve as her backing band). Tickets and more information can be found at the XPN Concert Calendar.
1/26 – Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tavern
1/27 – Los Angeles, CA – Ace Hotel
1/28 – Berkeley, CA – The UC Theatre
1/29 – Santa Barbara, CA – Lobero Theatre
1/30 – Stanford, CA – Bing Concert Hall
2/1 – Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
2/2 – Beaver Creek, CO – Vilar Performing Arts Center (VPAC)
2/4 – Iowa City, IA – Englert Theatre
2/5 – Eau Claire, WI – Pablo Center at the Confluence
2/7 – Ann Arbor, MI – Michigan Theater
2/8 – Cincinnati, OH – Longworth-Anderson Series at Memorial Hall
2/10 – Springfield, OH- Kuss Auditorium
2/11- North Bethesda, MD – The Music Center at Strathmore
2/12 – Princeton, NJ – McCarter Theatre Center
2/14 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
2/15 – Hanover, NH – Hopkins Center for the Arts
2/16 – Tarrytown, NY – Tarrytown Music Hall
2/17 – Portland, ME – Merrill Auditorium
2/18 – Boston, MA – Berklee Performance Center
2/19 – Burlington, VT – Flynn Center for the Performing Arts
2/20 – Kingston, NY – Old Dutch Church
2/23 – Roanoke, VA – Jefferson Center
2/24 – Charlotte, NC – Knight Theater
2/26 – Athens, GA – Hugh Hodgson School of Music
2/27 – Auburn, AL – Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University
2/28 – Greenville, SC – The Peace Center
4/28 – Evanston, IL – Space
4/29 – Milwaukee, WI – Shank Hall
5/01 – Minneapolis, MN – Turf Club
5/04 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
5/05 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
8/11 – Gothenburg, SE – Way Out West
8/13 – Rees, GER – Haldern Pop Festival
8/27 – Buckinghamshire, UK – Towersey Festival
8/29 – Cork, IE – St Luke’s
8/30 – Dublin, IE – Pepper Canister Church
8/31 – Liverpool, UK – Philharmonic Music Hall
9/01- Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
9/04 – Birmingham, UK – Moseley Folk Festival
11/3 – Berlin, DE – Lido
11/4 – Hamburg, DE – Mojo
11/8 – Paris, FR – Les Etoiles
11/9 – Brussels, BE – Botanique
11/11 – Manchester, UK – YES
11/12 – Glasgow, UK – St. Luke’s
11/13 – Newcastle, UK – Newcastle University Student Union
11/14 – Bristol, UK – Fleece
11/15 – London, UK – KOKO