Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler have shared the new song “Footnotes On The Map,” the fourth song taken from their upcoming debut album.
“There’s no fear without courage,” Buckley sings on the new track, Butler and guest vocalist Sam Lee echoing her words back at her. “A sense of what’s left behind or what’s to come/Just adrift in a moment/A float in the storm.” Their voices converge alongside the string section, marshaled by Sally Herbert.
“Footnotes On The Map” was partially inspired by the historian Robert McFarlane, who writes about the way walking reinforces our spiritual connection to the land around us. “In Aboriginal lore, there’s a belief that people mapped their immediate environment in song,” Butler said in a press release. “Each step was a note in a song that represented a journey. And that’s a hugely powerful idea.”
The track was recently performed live as Buckley and Butler made their debut appearance on Later… With Jools Holland. The duo also played their first live show last month at London’s Green Note, receiving rave reviews, including five stars from The Telegraph and the Evening Standard. Their next gig will take place at London’s Lafayette on June 17, which has already sold out. More dates will be announced soon.
The pair will release their debut joint album For All Our Days That Tear The Heart on June 17 via EMI Records. The record features songs about loss and longing (“Seven Red Rose Tattoos”), that take inspiration from seminal jazz-folk innovators Pentangle (“I’ve Got A Feeling,” “Sweet Child”), and a nod to both musicians’ Irish heritage (“20 Years A-Growing”).
“Right now, I feel like I’ll never make another album again,” Buckley said in a press release, “because I can’t imagine another album happening the way this one did. It’s amazing that it even happened once. This obscure, organic, odd little thing that just found us.”