Ann Wilson has released another solo single, the slow-burning “Black Wing.”
The evocative track opens with delicate acoustic guitar strums and a repeating keyboard riff as Wilson sings of the spirits connecting the threads of nature: “Over an outlaw river / Up on the southeastern wind / A spirit is shot like an arrow / Riding all the way home again.” The song climaxes with Wilson delivering her signature husky roar over heavy drums and crunchy power chords.
“The bird is soaring over the landscape below and bringing news of the crazy world to the watcher who is cut off from civilization,” Wilson tweeted with a link to the “Black Wing” lyric video. “I sometimes felt that way during quarantine!”
Wilson described “Black Wing” as a “heavy poetic” song in a 2020 interview with ABC Audio. “I live on a river, so there’s lots of birdlife and everything,” she explained. “And I see these birds coming so fast across my view. They’re coming from somewhere, and they’re on a mission to somewhere else. I thought, ‘Well, that spirit is carrying a lifeline from the world,’ you know? And so, that got me thinking about writing a song … about carrying messages from the world’s insanity out to this pure place.”
You can watch the new lyric video for “Black Wing” below.
“Black Wing” marks Wilson’s fourth single released over the past six months, following February’s riff-driven hard rocker “The Hammer,” January’s bluesy ballad “Tender Heart” and last October’s cover of Steve Earle’s “The Revolution Starts Now.” She called the latter track “a powerful, uplifting anthem of unity. It’s an incitement to think higher than polarization and derision. We need that now. I used to love this song in a ‘fun’ way. Nowadays, I take it much more seriously and urgently.”
Wilson recorded this new batch of songs in Seattle last fall with a crew of local musicians, including Heart bassist Andy Stoller and keyboardist Dan Walker. Her last solo album, 2018’s Immortal, paid tribute to several fallen rock legends, including Tom Petty, David Bowie, Chris Cornell and Glenn Frey.