Rae Spoon Announces ‘Assigned Country Singer at Birth’ – Exclaim Detail Page

Calgary, Alberta-born singer-songwriter Rae Spoon has detailed their forthcoming new album Assigned Country Singer at Birth, which also marks their return to country music. The LP is set to arrive April 10 via Coax Records.

As described by press notes, the Spoon’s thirteenth album is “equally subversive and relatable, a testament to the fact that country music is as expansive as the people who are connected to it.” Its tracklist includes songs about trans folks, harm reduction, disability, inclusion, religious trauma, solidarity and opposing colonial land occupation that “may seem antithetical to traditional country,” but are as “much a part of Spoon’s experiences as love songs, trucks and beer.”

Assigned Country Singer at Birth is previewed today by the first single “Can’t Fail Me” featuring Cassia Hardy, which is accompanied by a music video directed by Spoon themself.

“‘Can’t Fail Me” is a song that “embraces the intense clarity and urgency of sharing space with people without knowing how much time there is left,” Spoon shared of the track. “I’ve spent years living close to my own death and the deaths of others. Some of the most connected moments I’ve had are when we meet each other without a lot of expectation or withholding. So much living happens during sickness and near death. It’s a love song for sick, Disabled and oppressed people who care for and hold each other.”

Their statement continued:

Often a liminal relationship with time feels like trying to float without flailing, like I do in the accompanying film. The footage is from a shoot on the unceded traditional territory of the T’Sou-ke First Nation (Sooke, BC). The lake is near a hospital I spent a lot of time institutionalized in for cancer complications.

Cassia Hardy is the featured vocalist. She’s a prolific musician from Treaty 6 (Edmonton) that have a lot of respect for. I wanted to sing with her because of our shared experience of being from a place that is both home and politically/institutionally hostile to us and people we love.

Releasing this single on my 45th birthday helps me celebrate that I’m still here while acknowledging the combination of privilege and luck that allowed me to live this long. I view my survival as a responsibility to keep trying to make pathways easier for people who have a more difficult time.

Watch the music video for “Can’t Fail Me” and find the tracklist for Assigned Country Singer at Birth below.

Assigned Country Singer at Birth:

1. Country Music Breaks My Heart
2. Assigned Country Singer at Birth
3. Pray
4. Last Cigarette
5. Can’t Stop Lightening (feat. Kimmortal, Louis Sanchez)
6. All Drugs Safe Legal and Free
7. Ostomy Cowboy
8. Not Too Sick to Love
9. Can’t Fail Me (feat. Cassia Hardy)
10. Hyper Country (feat. Theodore Walker Robinson)