New Music: Hercules & Love Affair "Fools Wear Crowns"

Hercules & Love Affair drops the "insanely personal" new song "Fools Wear Crowns" from the upcoming album Omnion just in time for the weekend.

As he celebrates four years of sobriety after years of serious drug addiction, Hercules' Andy Butler explains that “Fools Wears Crowns” is “insanely personal” and as such is indicative of Omnion as a whole.

“It’s literally an apology, an attempt at amends," says Butler. "A few years back I was in the grip of a brutal drug addiction that saw me overdosed in hospital every weekend. I was really decimated. My family said they couldn’t be around me anymore unless I spent a long haul in rehab, but at the height of my addiction I went to Europe and didn’t talk to them for over a year. My mother and my sister were in tears the moment I played them that song.”

Butler explains further to Pitchfork:

“Fools Wear Crowns” was an opportunity for me, in a small way, to express some remorse. It was a little attempt at [making] amends for a specific relationship, but also many of the relationships in my life that suffered during that period. The lyrics acknowledge that we as humans enjoy, in a weird way, watching people fumble. But it’s not always buffoonery that you’re seeing. In my case, I think there was an illness at play. The song examines lens through which we look at people’s messiness. It’s like saying, “I’m vulnerable, prone to mistakes, and I’ve made some.”

The chill vibe paired with the sparse electronic arrangement and melancholy lyrics lays the groundwork for an emotionally open, pensive musical landscape.

I’m a fool when I’ve been drinking
I’m glad that I didn’t today
It was foolish to lie to you
To think I could wish all the clouds away
Why yell at the sky if it's going to rain?
It’s going to rain, don’t be foolish

Listen below.