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May 31, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Luke Rogers

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Daniel Nunnelee has been on the rise for the past few years, crafting a sound that unites warm and homespun folk pop with bursts of crackling indie rock energy. In 2021 he shared his latest EP, It’s Okay, It Has to Be, before returning the following year with a new single, “Pick and Choose.” Since then, he has released “Deer Trails” and “Do You,” a pair of new singles teasing his forthcoming debut album, June, Baby, due out on June 28th. Today, he’s back with another new track, “ily ily ily,” premiering with Under the Radar.

With “ily ily ily” Nunnelee offers an understated counterpoint to the bright folk rock tones of his last single, “Do You.” The track opens with gentle acoustic fingerpicking, with the solitary guitar flickering quietly amidst Nunnelee’s plaintive vocal melodies. Rattling percussion and open-hearted strums soon take to the forefront of the track, coloring it in earthen tones and ramshackle energy. As Nunnelee describes, you can hear drummer Noah Pope figuring out the drum part in real-time. Meanwhile, underneath its spellbinding and sparse slow-burn, Nunnelee also steeps the track in a plaintive lyrical undercurrent, longing for connection with a distant lover.

As Nunnelee describes, “This first half of this song is about growing up in church and feeling guilty for wanting to explore my sexual nature. And the second half is about how I’m always looking for the next thing and looking ahead instead of appreciating the moment I’m in. It’s about deciding to be here now and make use of what we have and who we are and not worry about anything other than the moment we’re currently in. I also recently have become obsessed with Brazilian artists like Tim Bernardes and Gal Costa so I wrote a line in Portuguese at the end of the song that translates to ‘I loved you, I love you, I’ll love you forever.’”

Check out the song below, along with an accompanying acoustic performance. June, Baby is out on June 28th.