“Ya ever feel like we’ve been had?” Chris Shiflett sings in his new song “Long, Long Year,” an opening lyric that calls to mind Johnny Rotten’s famous query: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” But “Long, Long Year” delivers — the mid-tempo ballad is another satisfying slice of country-rock from Shiflett, the Foo Fighters guitarist and alt-country songwriter.
Recorded in Nashville with an all-star band of pros like the Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence, steel player Luke Schneider, and mandolin ace Sierra Hull, “Long, Long Year” is less a lament of a rough 365 than it is a bittersweet recollection of a busted romance. Shiflett sells the resulting ennui well, moping and loping along through the months and seasons: “Now I’m stumbling like a summer wind,” he sings.
Shiflett recorded the song with producer Vance Powell in Nashville in March 2021. “I hadn’t done much traveling post-covid lockdown so I was a little nervous heading out there to work with a producer and roomful of musicians I didn’t really know,” he says in a statement. “In true Nashville style we made our introductions and got right down to work, hammering out the basic tracks in a few hours. Vance was great and made me feel right at home, and the group of players he put together were on point.”
“Long, Long Year” is Shiflett’s first new solo music since his 2019 album Hard Lessons.