Placebo have shared an emotive new song, ‘Happy Birthday In The Sky’ – listen to it below.
- READ MORE: Soundtrack Of My Life: Placebo’s Brian Molko
It’s the final single to be released from the band’s upcoming new album ‘Never Let Me Go’, which arrives on March 25. It follows on from previous singles ‘Beautiful James‘, ‘Surrounded By Spies‘ and ‘Try Better Next Time‘.
Speaking about the new single, Brian Molko said: “’Happy Birthday In The Sky’, for me, is one of the more heartbreaking moments on the album. ‘Happy Birthday In The Sky’ is a phrase that I’ve been using for quite some time. When I say, happy birthday to people who aren’t with us anymore, it communicates the kind of heartbreak that we’re really, really good at communicating I think.
“You know that sense of loss, that sense of desperation. It’s as if a part of your body and your soul has been ripped from you unfairly. And you pine and you pine, and you wait.”
He continued: “What I am thinking is that this is kind of so visceral and so intense emotionally that it’s really going to communicate something very powerful to the listener.
“And that’s basically all I’m interested in. At what cost? Who cares. As long as the song really, really moves people, then whatever sacrifices you have to make in order to get there are fine with me. It’s not such a bad thing to inhabit these emotions – you’re very, very much alive and in the moment while you’re doing so.”
The follow-up to 2013’s ‘Loud Like Love’, ‘Never Let Me Go’ – announced back in November 2021 alongside news of a UK and European tour – marks Placebo’s first new album in almost a decade.
Molko stated in an interview with The Guardian that the upcoming album deals with themes of climate change, extreme inequality and a society under constant surveillance, though he said he doesn’t have all the answers and that he “wanted to express something visceral, something very human”.
In the same interview, Molko revealed ‘Never Let Me Go’ started life while the band were on their 20th anniversary tour for their 1996 self-titled debut album.
The band had already detailed how they wrote the album “backwards”, with Molko saying: “If you decide to do everything in a way that you don’t actually know how to do, you’ll fall into a series of accidents which can stimulate you or disgust you. That surprise is what I live for.”
Earlier this week, Placebo pulled out of Moscow’s Park Live 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The post Listen to Placebo’s emotive new single ‘Happy Birthday In The Sky’ appeared first on NME.
