Chicago-based singer/songwriter Maria Jacobson, who records and performs as Fran, has shared her first proper single since her acclaimed 2019 debut album A Private Picture. “So Long” is out now on Fire Talk Records, accompanied by a self-co-directed, reality TV-inspired music video.
Where A Private Picture found Fran juggling rock (“So Surreal,” “Company”), Americana (“Time and Place,” “In My Own Time,” etc.) and even avant-garde sounds (“Now”), “So Long” feels more like a narrowing of sonic scope. Jacobson’s singing and songwriting shine over acoustic guitar and brushed percussion, as her lyrics outline an estranged relationship, of which she’s on the wrong side: “And I can’t hold on / With a rope so long / I wonder where you’ve gone.” Her emotional vulnerability is reinforced by the song’s sparse indie-folk instrumentation—she’s doing a lot with a little.
”‘So Long’ is about the gulfs that form in relationships: feeling distant emotionally and then trying to correct it with physical distance,” Jacobson explains in a statement. “It was written in a time of a lot of solo camping. The video is inspired by my favorite escape, Real Housewives.”
“So Long” is only Fran’s second release of any kind since A Private Picture—in 2020, she contributed a track called “Mother” to a Twosyllable Records Chicago cassette compilation.