A. Savage, the Parquet Courts frontman, has shared his new single/visualizer, “David’s Dead,” from Several Songs About Fire, his new album out this Friday on Rough Trade. On “David’s Dead” — a song memorializing his longtime friend and neighbor David Lester, who was homeless and would ring his door for conversation late at night — Savage spurns the sepulchral or elegiac. Instead, the song travels on a poppy, conversational refrain and the joyous half-life of a vibraphone, a better tribute to someone who Savage remembers as having little restraint, and a better reminder that death is made of life.

Of “David’s Dead,” Savage says: “ “What can I say about the song ‘David’s Dead?’ Well I can tell you that it’s a portrait of the block in New York City that I called home for over a decade, each line sort of a tally of things that had changed in that time. I can tell you that David’s passing made some of those changes much more evident than they were before. I can tell you that the last time I saw David I bought him both a black coffee and a can of Crazy Stallion, and that we drank a coffee together on my stoop, but I said ‘see ya later’ when he cracked open the tallboy.”

Produced by John Parish in Bristol, Several Songs About Fire is bolstered by the support of Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) and Cate Le Bon, as well as members of Kamikaze Palm Tree & caroline. The end result is tantamount to psychic odyssey, containing a singular irreverence which is stitched together by Savage’s outsize gifts as a lyricist and observer, a quality Parish calls “an emotional openness guarded by a laconic wit.” Worrying questions of wealth and poverty, self and other, Savage displays the poet’s gift of knowing when to narrate and when to vanish, leaving the listener to their own emotional privacy rather than instructing them how to feel through vertiginous inversions of instrumentation and lyrics.

A. SAVAGE TOUR DATES

Fri. Oct. 20 – Portland, ME @ SPACE ^
Sat. Oct. 21 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom ^
Sun. Oct. 22 – Portsmouth, NH @ Press Room ^
Mon. Oct.23 – Montreal,QC @ Bar Le Ritz
Tue. Oct. 24 – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground ^
Wed. Oct. 25 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Eccentric Cafe ^
Fri. Oct. 27 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle ^
Sat. Oct. 28 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club *
Sun. Oct. 29 – Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo #
Mon. Oct. 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway %
Wed. Nov. 1 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups %
Thu. Nov. 2 – Louisville, KY @ Whirling Tiger %
Fri. Nov. 3 – Nashville, TN @ Third Man %
Sat. Nov. 4 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl %
Sun. Nov. 5 – Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle
Tue. Nov. 7 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle %
Thu. Nov. 9 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat %
Fri. Nov. 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian %
Sat. Nov. 11 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom %
Thu. Feb 08, 2024 – Manchester, UK @ Pink Room
Fri. Feb 09, 2024 – Dublin, Ireland @ Workmans Club
Sun. Feb 11, 2024 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
Mon. Feb 12, 2024 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla
Wed. Feb 14, 2024 – London, UK @ The Garage
Thu. Feb 15, 2024 – Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
Fri. Feb 16, 2024 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique Rotonde
Sun. Feb 18, 2024 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso Upstairs
Mon. Feb 19, 2024 – Cologne, Germany @ MTC Club
Wed. Feb 21, 2024 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Ideal Bar – Vega
Thu. Feb 22, 2024 – Berlin, Germany @ Privat Club
Fri. Apr 05, 2024 – Austin, TX @ The Far Out
Sun. Apr 07, 2024 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
Tue. Apr 09, 2024 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
Wed. Apr 10, 2024 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s
Thu. Apr 11, 2024 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Fri. Apr 12, 2024 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Teragram Ballroom
Sat. Apr 13, 2024 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
Mon. Apr 15, 2024 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Tue. Apr 16, 2024 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern

^ w/ Annie Hart

Pre-order Several Songs About Fire HERE.