Song Premiere: Twilark – “No Cowboy Song”

Twilark, the Raleigh-based project of songwriter Canon Pence, unveiled his sophomore full-length Never Learned the Tide today alongside its lead single, “No Cowboy Song”.

Drawing inspiration from Dean Johnson‘s “Faraway Skies” and Colter Wall‘s “Cowpoke”, Pence set out to write a straightforward cowboy song and, in his words, watched it “crash out over inauthenticity.” And yet what emerged was a wry and self-aware meditation on whether you can romanticize the cowboy life from the comfort of your own home. It’s a fitting entry point to an album built on that same tension between longing for more and staying honest.

Never Learned the Tide was recorded live over six days at the Bomb Shelter in Nashville, produced by Dominic Billett (Andrew Combs), with contributions from Music City musicians Erin Rae, Spencer Cullum, and Maya De Vitry. Canon’s Western NC roots run through the record, with “No Cowboy Song” carrying that same rootedness even as it pokes fun at the myths surrounding it.

Check out “No Cowboy Song” below!