Watch Mike Mangione & the Kin Sing Stripped-Down ‘Three Days’ [Exclusive]
Folk performer Mike Mangione has been making music for more than a decade, but with the creation of his latest project, Mike Mangione & the Kin, and their forthcoming Three Days EP, the Wisconsin-based singer-songwriter is revealing yet another new side of himself and his music. Click play above to watch Mangione and his band perform a beautifully stripped-down version of the EP's title track, "Three Days," premiering exclusively for readers of The Boot.
Recorded in Milwaukee, Wisc., this simple presentation of "Three Days," written by Mangione, finds its power in the passionate performance by Mangione on lead guitar and vocals, Tom Mangione on guitar, Chauntee Ross on violin and Monique Ross on cello. Beginning with just voices, "Three Days" finds its heart in Mangione's soulful vocals and the Ross sisters' harmonies, before launching into a crescendo of strings to produce a beautiful and mournful melody that encapsulates the overall theme of the song.
""Three Days" is a song about someone led by the heart and in search of another," Mangione tells The Boot. "A journey that requires vulnerability and can cause pain but ultimately reveals the depths of who we are and the bonds we are meant to have here on Earth."
Often throughout "Three Days," the song's lyrics give way to orchestral instrumentation, with soaring violins and cellos taking center stage. About a couple who finds their way back to one another even from long distances and following time spent apart, "Three Days" is the kind of song that takes on a whole life in just a few simple verses.
"At night I had a dream / That nothing's what it seems / And to surrender is to win / Oh, to welcome death is to begin / To be the words that they speak of / To hold my weakness, that's to love," sings Mangione in the second verse of "Three Days," leading into the layered chorus: "Three more days / And I'm coming home / Leave a candle by the door / Three more days / Will you be there, too? / Please be gentle, I'll be true to you."
Mike Mangione & the Kin's Three Days EP is due out on May 19, and available for pre-order on Mangione's website. For more information on Mangione's new and past work, visit his website.
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