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Jun 17, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Kendall Rock

Last week, outfit Mr. Sam and The People People returned with their sophomore record, Again! Again! Arriving two years after their debut, People People People People, the record hits on a similarly playful combination of rambling Americana, rock, and singer/songwriter fare. The results are at turns summery, rollicking, and infectious, all knit together with Sam’s plaintive songwriting and warm charm. Following the album’s release, the band are sharing an accompanying music video for one of the record’s highlights, “Go Baby Go (Part Two),” premiering with Under the Radar.

The album opens on a winding and reflective note, “Go Baby Go (Part One).” “Part Two” arrives later in the record and offers a stark contrast with the opener. The track comes steeped in twangy guitar lines, chugging grooves, and hazy, sun-dappled melodies, making for some of the most bright and playful moments on the record. The vocals play call-and-response with the lead guitar, dancing back and forth as a saloon piano twinkles away in the track’s margins. All the while, the rhythm section drives the track forward at a steady clip, building up into a raucous sing-along finale.

Mr. Sam says of the track and accompanying video, “I enjoy writing songs for occasions. I wrote go baby go standing alone in my underwear in a cold garage at midnight in Asheville while my friends slept in the next room, but I was thinking about a show I had booked for the upcoming Monday night weekly that I had booked at St Roch Tavern in New Orleans. It’s a sweaty room all year round, a dancing room, a room full of artists who are looking to find something in each other, near each other, with each other. I thought it would be fun to write a song that could bounce off those walls, a song that could sustain and appease the appetite of the seasoned dancers who wanted to go through their whole spin catalog, a song that could command the space with a sense of immediacy — ‘It’s right now! This is the thing we look for! Cannonball!’ I also thought it would be fun to write a song of instructions lyrically — every line is a command, but instead of ‘do the mashed potato’ it’s ‘break your hip’

When developing up the concept for the music video, I decided that it would be fun to play with opposites — I could very easily see a party song matched with a party backdrop, but I wanted to challenge our imaginations with an opposing theme — we turned the song off and drafted up the most mundane scenario we could muster. In the original script, I was supposed to fill up a water bottle for 45 seconds. I also thought it would be fun to roll down a hill, as I had done so recently and found it fun. Thus a video was born.”

Check out the song and video below. Again! Again! is out now via Tape Dad Records.