Today, Margo Price has joined forces with Jesse Welles to release the new single, “Don’t Wake Me Up,”which reveals another side to the bulletproof songwriting, relentless grit and unshakable self-belief that makes Price a hard headed woman. Evoking the essence of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and paying direct homage with the Hannah Gray Hall-directed music video, the latest preview of the artist’s forthcoming album, Hard Headed Woman, is a freewheeling country rocker that chugs through hundreds of masterfully-spun words, as it takes listener son a trip to dozens of places that are all better than here.

“The way the world is going, ain’t where I’m at,” howls Price and Welles in unison, willing themselves to dream away the politician screaming on the television, or the madness seeping through the internet. “And sooner or later we’ll all be dead, I’d rather be living it up, up in my head.” The accompanying video for “Don’t Wake Me Up” finds Price in a field, dive bar, cow pasture, cemetery, honky tonk, factory, liquor store, bowling alley, trailer park, Waffle House, Midwest strip mall and more places of the locations sung throughout the song.

Don’t Wake Me Up” was partly inspired by the boundless work of one of Price‘s favorite poets, Frank Stanford. The song began as a series of notebook entries that Price’s husband and collaborator Jeremy Ivey later stumbled upon. “This song began as a poem a few years ago and was initially inspired by poet Frank Stanford. My husband and co-writer, Jeremy Ivey, found the idea I had scribbled from my abandoned notebook, and we resurrected it with a melody. The whole thing came together in ten minutes in one of those lightning bolt moments where you’re tapped into something bigger than yourself. I wanted to remind people of all the places and ways that we are still allowed to dream even when the outside world seems like a nightmare.” says Price.

Photo Credit: Kalyn Oyer