- Music
- 24 Feb 21
Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, the original villanelle was written in 1947 by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.
Iggy Pop has shared a new video for his 2019 Free track ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’, which sees Pop reading the famous Dylan Thomas poem over music composed by Noveller.
Directed by Simon Taylor, the simplistic yet powerful new visuals feature an intense close-up shot of the punk star reciting the lyrics.
Free was the first new Iggy Pop album since 2016’s Post Pop Depression, and was released on September 6, 2019 on Loma Vista.
While it follows the highest charting album of Iggy’s career, Free has virtually nothing in common sonically with its predecessor—or with any other Iggy Pop album.
On the process that led Iggy and principal players Leron Thomas and Noveller to create this uniquely somber and contemplative LP, Pop said:
"This is an album in which other artists speak for me, but I lend my voice. By the end of the tours following Post Pop Depression, I felt sure that I had rid myself of the problem of chronic insecurity that had dogged my life and career for too long.
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"I also felt drained. I felt like I wanted to put on shades, turn my back, and walk away," Iggy added.
"I wanted to be free. I know that’s an illusion, and that freedom is only something you feel, but I have lived my life thus far in the belief that that feeling is all that is worth pursuing; all that you need - not happiness or love necessarily, but the feeling of being free. This album just kind of happened to me, and I let it happen."
In November 2020, Pop inducted Nine Inch Nails into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during a virtual ceremony. In December of the same year, Pop sang in French on Elvis Costello’s 'No Flag (en Français)' and wrote a COVID-19 tune called 'Dirty Little Virus.'
Check out the video for 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' below: