Exclusive: Hear “Change,” Griffin House’s Beautiful New Duet with Joy Williams

“We were never meant to stay the same,” Griffin House and Joy Williams sing in unison on their new song “Change.” Premiering here at Paste today, it’s the last track on House’s forthcoming album Rising Star (out June 28 on Evening Records), and it makes for an affirmative farewell. If nothing is ever certain except for uncertainty, then “Change” finds the right words for comfortably wading through the shifts. House said the song, which he wrote with Williams at her home in Nashville, was born in less than a day:

I co-wrote this song with Joy Williams, formerly of The Civil Wars. We sat in front of the fireplace at her home in Nashville and I remember showing her the idea for the verse. We worked on the words for an hour or two, and then out of nowhere she sang this beautiful chorus. We broke for lunch and came back and finished it that afternoon. It was one of those songs that took years to live and only one short day to write. Joy’s voice is magic.

Williams, who has a new record of her own out now called Front Porch, sounds splendid with House, a singer/songwriter who’s spent more than 15 years touring with acts like Josh Ritter, The Cranberries and John Mellencamp, and making records of his own. So he’s no “Rising Star” in the typical sense of the phrase, but the album certainly pays homage to House’s ascent from a guitar-toting Nashville newbie to a Music City regular—what he jokingly calls a “slow rise.”

Rising Star also features co-writes by The Lone Bellow’s Brian Elmquist and percussion by Ian Fitchuk, who nabbed an Album of the Year Grammy for his production of Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour.

Again, you can listen to “Change” below. Further down, watch a clip from House’s 2016 Paste Studio session.

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