On September 12th I am releasing a new album called Songs for Other People's Weddings. It’s a companion album to a book of the same name, written by my old friend David Levithan, which will be released on August 5th. You can already pre-order the book.

The first single of the album is called Candy From A Stranger and it's out now.
There is a music video too.
And I’m going on tour.

Lots to digest, I know. Let me tell you a bit more about it below.




On my first album there was a song called If You Ever Need a Stranger (To Sing at Your Wedding) which wasn’t really meant to be taken seriously. But people did. And so for the last 21 years I’ve been singing at weddings and writing wedding songs for couples.  It’s been a way of supporting my songwriting career financially as well as giving music a purpose in the streaming economy. A few years ago I got the idea to create a story around this and I reached out to my old friend David Levithan about writing it together. I started sending him fictional wedding songs for fictional couples and he weaved the songs into a story about a wedding singer vaguely based on me. My initial idea was that these songs that I wrote for the fictional couples would be compiled and that would simply be the album. But halfway through I realized that those songs wouldn’t make any sense on their own. So instead I wrote an album that retells the story from the book, like a narrative concept album. Yes, I may have written my first rock opera.

The first single from the album is called Candy From a Stranger and it is the moment when the two lovers in the story meet for the first time. Or maybe it’s not the first time, maybe they’ve been a couple for years? Maybe they just see each other with new eyes? For the music video I asked couples I’d played for over the years to send me their footage of me performing for them and the very talented Rena Johnsson turned it into a beautiful collage.

In November I will tour the USA with a band and play the songs from the album. There will be more tour dates in other places after that but I don’t have those dates yet. Have patience and you will know soon. I’m looking forward to seeing your faces.

There is much more to talk about and you will hear from me soon again.


J

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