James Vincent McMorrow performed his newest single Gone this week on Stephen Colbert’s #PerformAtHome series. The performance was filmed in The Palace Bar in James’ hometown of Dublin. James has described the performance as the TV performance he is most proud of in his whole career.
Speaking about the performance in an Instagram post, James said; “We set out to create something that felt like more than just a television performance, i wanted people to watch it and feel like they were there in the room with me. It would be really easy right now, with remote shooting, to edit and fix and perfect the thing. By keeping it as a single shot, we were forced to commit, and that brought me deeper into the performance than i would have gotten otherwise.”
James also spoke about performing in The Palace Bar, saying; “We shot in The Palace Bar in Dublin because we wanted to draw light on another part of Irish life that is currently shut down. Getting to speak to the owner about the three generations of his family who’ve run the place, the people who’ve come through over the years, how worried he was for the future of his family and staff… It added another level of weight to what we were doing.”
Gone came out last week and was premiered on BBC Radio 1 Future Sounds With Annie Mac as the Hottest Record in the World. The song explores the idea of the breakdown of relationships, in particular the relationship you have with yourself. James explained how the lyrics of this song shows how he feels about life and all the ups and down such as; “how I hear it, my fear of it, my obsession with it, my belligerent belief that I can control it, my quiet acknowledgment in the middle of the night that i will never control a single thing. And there’s nothing wrong with any of it.”
This is the third song James has released this year and will be the first song from his upcoming album, which will be his first in three years. Last month I Should Go came out and has since been remixed and reimagined as an upbeat club song by Grammy nominated DJ and producer Nic Fanciulli and James also shared a stripped down acoustic version.
Gone is out now on all platforms. You can watch James Vincent McMorrow’s performance on Stephen Colbert below.