Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
On her new song “Common Cold,” Los Angeles-based folk artist Jennah Bell takes the phrase “lovesick” to a whole new level. For the narrator, that feeling isn’t just a yearning, but an actual illness that’s rarely diagnosed—and not easily cured. “Uncommonly cold,” Bell sings. “Your memory froze to the cigarette smoke married to my coat.” Just like a nasty virus, she’s having a hard time shaking off this heartbreak flu.
The chilly track, which Bell dedicates to time spent in considerable cold (both emotional and literal), is from the singer/songwriter’s forthcoming debut studio LP Anchors & Elephants, out Feb. 22, and it’s premiering today (Feb. 5) exclusively at Paste. You can check it out below.
Here’s Bell’s own very poetic (and spot-on) explanation of the song:
It was a moderately cold winter in New York and while I had maintained a clean bill of health, I had managed to fall painfully in love, limb by limb. In the years that followed after the relationship ended, that dull ache still haunted the streets that we’d walked, and the bars where we drank. Much like the sniffling and achey chest that we’ve come to expect around February, its threat is as troublesome as its nesting.
We named Bell, a Berklee College of Music alumnae, one of 10 promising folk and roots artists to watch in 2019, though her sound isn’t necessarily solely Americana. She sings with the soul of an R&B artist, but she plays guitar like a folk songstress. Bell, newly 30, says Anchors & Elephants is about self-discovery in one’s 20s and “things that kept me from moving forward or things I hadn’t said to people, and things I hadn’t said to myself for that matter.” Russell Elevado, who’s worked with the likes of Erykah Badu, The Roots and D’Angelo, mixed three songs on the album, and The Roots’ own James Poyser produced the track “3’59 (New York).” Michael Haziza mixed “Common Cold.”
Again, you can listen to “Common Cold” below. While you’re here, read our list of 10 folk artists you need to know in 2019. Keep scrolling for Bell’s tour dates.
Jennah Bell Tour Dates:
February
26 – London, U.K. @ Bush Hall *
27 – Paris, France @ Badaboum *
28 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso Noord *
March
01 – Berlin, Germany @ Maschinehaus *
(* – with Emily King)