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Feb 03, 2022 By Caleb Campbell

Denver-based indie rock outfit Clementine Was Right is led by poet and fiction writer Mike Young. After releasing three books of poems and stories through the 2010s, in the early days of 2020 Young and company released the band’s first LP, Lightning & Regret. This spring the band are back with their follow-up Can’t Get Right With The Darkness, expanding on their mix of cosmic Americana, sparkling new wave, and thoughtful storytelling.

Today, the band have shared a new taste of the record with their single “Half of My Heart Is a Runaway Train,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Half of My Heart Is a Runaway Train” is another taste of earnest songwriting from the band. At the track’s emotive core is Young’s emphatic confessions, carrying the song forward with cinematic drama. As a songwriter, Young wears his heart on his sleeve at all times, exploring lovestruck angst with Springsteen-esque imagery. Those Springsteen comparisons also hold equally true instrumentally. The whole band locks into place with near-effortless chemistry. The band weaves together galloping rhythms, warm honkey-tonk guitars, and sweet three-part harmonies, a marriage of heartland rock and rambling alt-country.

Young says of the track, “In 2008, I was going to a fancy grad school for writing in New England, feeling very much like a hick off the Greyhound. I wrote the first draft of ‘Half of My Heart is a Runaway Train’ for my friend Jack, who is from North Carolina, which—we discovered—gave rise to similar feelings as being from rural Northern California (like me). We did drink at the VFW, and I did accidentally wake up in a tobacco barn. I still don’t know if I’m right when I sing ‘You know it ain’t love if you say it too much,’ but I like a little confident doom. Luckily I didn’t pretend the song was finished until a decade later, when I read Rebecca Lindenberg’s ‘Aphorism (Sometimes the best)’ and realized going back into the river was the best way out of the rain (like you’re already down there, you come up, you look around, you head right back down) and the most joyful way to end this song.”

Check out the song below. Can’t Get Right With The Darkness is due out March 18th.