Lay Your Burden Down

by Old Sun, New Moon

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about

Lay Your Burden Down was the first song we played together and is really the essence of what Old Sun, New Moon is. The original idea for me was to take these simple bits of songs and not overthink them at all, just kind of make them meditations on themselves, or at least meditations on whatever came to mind, and let Ethan elevate them however they saw fit. It's good to see where a song goes or – as is the case with this one really – doesn't go: sometimes the core of what it started as is enough if you've said all you've felt the need to say within the song.

Lyrically it's a bit of a love letter to the sense of belonging I felt from others when I needed it most, and that I continue to, so it'll always be a favourite of mine. I kind of see it as the marker between the past and all the good that has come since that I may never have found.

This was the first song we played live together, and Emily Mercer joined us then so it's only right that she's on the final version, and even introduces it. This was also the first Old Sun, New Moon song recorded – it's the guitar and vocals from that first session at Kevin Foy's that was originally done just to send demos to Ethan and see how we'd work together. It felt right to use that recording from a time we'd only even met once or twice as an artefact of new beginnings.

lyrics

Lay your burden down, be it love or the fears you found.
Take all caught in doubt against the good that is here and now
and you could see – with bitter relief –
that all you’d been could never bring your dreams.
And time moves on, and things get better
when you find where you belong.
Set your burden free, and know that all that will be will be
only all you see, and then only what you take it to mean.
Well, you believed in all that you had been
but all is seen and you can never hide your dreams.
And time moves on, and things get better
when you find where you belong.

credits

released April 5, 2024
Acoustic Guitar and lyrics - Tom Welsh
Electric guitar - Ethan Helfrich
Backing vocals and piano - Emily Mercer
Produced and mastered by Kevin Foy kevinfoyproductions.com

Art - postcard manipulation by Ethan Helfrich

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Old Sun, New Moon Manchester, UK

Old Sun, New Moon is a transatlantic duo made up of Lancashire singer-songwriter Tom Welsh and ambient noisemaker Ethan Helfrich from Indiana, US.

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