Watch Orville Peck's 'Already Gone' Video
(Warner) Orville Peck shares the next single from his highly anticipated album Mule, a candid, chronological account of the trailblazing country artist's journey through addiction and recovery.
Out now, "Already Gone" is one of the most rowdy songs on the project, but the feel-good mood masks some dark feelings, capturing the moment Peck enters rehab. Poised to become a career-defining album, Mule arrives September 18 on Warner Records.
"Already Gone" lands early in the album's story, when I first entered the rehab facility. I accepted the decision to seek treatment but deep down I believed I didn't have a problem. The video reflects my arrogant mindset as I picture the experience as a lighthearted musical, while in reality, I was in total crisis" says Peck.
Produced by Jay Joyce (Patty Griffin, Eric Church) and written by Peck with Jacob Portrait (Alex G, Porches), "Already Gone" gets its swaggering brightness and infectious clap-along joy from Peck's ace five-piece band, while bluegrass luminaries Molly Tuttle and Ketch Secor (Old Crow Medicine Show), plus Ry Jennings, lend their gifts to the reverie-like bridge.
For his part, Peck struts and strides over the upbeat instrumentation, sounding downright triumphant as he shouts, "Ohh-hoo! Put me in the slammer!" But the verses nod to some heavier truths and complex emotions: "Lonesome heart by design, broken head in decline / Telling anyone who'll listen, it'll all be fine / Just one more man at the end of his line."
The "Already Gone" video vividly brings the song's central contrast to life, finding Peck whiling away the hours in a rehab facility. We see the difficult day-to-day work of getting sober: therapy sessions, urine tests, an endless parade of tiny paper pill cups. But in other moments, the visual tips into gloriously choreographed fantasy as orderlies clap and shimmy in time, fellow residents twist and twirl, and Peck is joined by his band in the dayroom. Noah Cyrus, Allison Russel and Cathy Cooper make their third appearance in their re-occurring roles as the three figments of Orville's mind.
Afterward, the clip ends with an important message, directing any viewers who are struggling or in crisis - or know someone else who is - to contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or The Trevor Project (for LGBTQ+ youth) by texting "START" to 678-678.
Peck announced Mule last month in grand fashion. First, he shared "Prologue (Eulogy Of A Man Turned Mule)" which features vocals and appearances by Cyrus, Russel and Emmylou Harris (who is played by Cathy Cooper in the video). In the song's video, the trio don black veils and nurse uniforms (in brief cut-aways to the "Already Gone" rehab facility) as they sing Peck's would-be eulogy. It's a beautifully bleak ending that, it turns out, represents a beginning.
As Peck recently shared in an in-depth interview with Rolling Stone, Mule unfolds as a timeline of the year that reshaped his life, starting with a moment in which he nearly lost everything. The result, according to the magazine, is "his best, most realized, album yet." Told with unflinching honesty, humor, and heart, Mule finds Peck confronting love, loss, and identity through songs that move fluidly between classic country storytelling, bluegrass, and expansive Americana.
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