We’re happy to premiere a new Sam Kogon song today, “Barbed Wire,” off an upcoming EP set for release this spring.
Kogon has two LPs to his name, and also briefly fronted a reformed The Left Banke in 2015.
But today he’s playing psyche-tinged power pop, on display “Barbed Wire” and on this new EP in general.
In addition to the EP, Kogan is at work on a new full-length with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Dinosaur Jr), who he serendipitously met while working as an extra on The Irishman.
Check out the song below.
“Barbed Wire” is a song about accepting love, denying love, unrequited love, infatuation, and coming out of the closet. It's inspired by two friends exchanging songs they write as coded love letters. One friend wants their love to come off the page and the other friend can only express their true feelings in song. Running away with or from someone who isn't emotionally available can get you tangled in the barbed wire fences they put up at the first signs of vulnerability, so I chose that as the title of the song. The one friend trying to move forward is asking (rhetorically) "Is this love? Is this love? I need to know right now...and could you even tell me right now". They already know the answer: Sometimes there isn't a happy ending or closure; sometimes we get burnt like tires, and that's ok.
