Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘New Morning Comes,’ Thomas Cohen

In May, English singer-songwriter Thomas Cohen released Bloom Forever (Stolen Recordings), a sanguine set of songs that track his life from 2012 to 2015. It was a time of change for the artist, to say the least. It was during those years that his post-punk outfit, S.C.U.M., disbanded, and in 2014, he tragically lost his wife, Peaches Geldof. The work that emerges from those years, though, is not despondent—instead, it’s serenely searching. Here, we’re pleased to premiere the music video for the album’s seventh track, “New Morning Comes.”

 “I wrote it in my friend’s flat in West Norwood,” Cohen recalls of the song’s beginnings. “She was at work and I had been to the shop for a Coke. She has this cheap Spanish guitar and a capo and lives on the top floor that overlooks South London. You can see the cemetery in West Norwood really clearly and some of Crystal Palace. The whole thing came to me there and then.”

Perched above the city, with a view of its memorialized past and active present, Cohen wrote, “Will you be there to hold my hand / As the sea becomes the storm / Be the light, shine through the window / As a new morning comes.” The song’s new visuals suit its introspective tone; its palette starts off subdued, and Cohen is left alone, self-assuredly swaying and exploring his surroundings.

The concept for the video came about when Victor Gutierrez, its director, recalled a Kishin Shinoyama photograph of John Lennon sitting in the back of a limo. He was struck by the confidence Lennon exudes while remaining sensitive. “We both love Lennon and the brutal honesty of his work post-the Beatles, both lyrically and with his image,” says Cohen. The photograph takes form in the video, with Cohen sitting in the back of a car, mindlessly sliding his hand out of the window and into the breeze, wearing an unguarded expression. Ultimately, the car’s driver becomes the video’s human hope, and the answer to the question in Cohen’s refrain. Behind the anonymity of sunglasses and a uniform, Cohen finds a surprising savior.

BLOOM FOREVER IS AVAILABLE NOW VIA STOLEN RECORDINGS. FOR MORE ON THOMAS COHEN, VISIT HIS FACEBOOK.