Ahead of the Oct. 9 release of its next album Permanent Change Part 1, Matt Pond PA has shared the track “Learn How To Lose” along with an accompanying video starring actress Kate Walsh.
The song began, appropriately enough, in miniature: as a basement demo Pond sent upstairs to his wife/songwriter Anya Marina, who returned it with revisions that helped him discover what he calls “the celebration inside all my regrets.” Sonically, Pond traces the track to a “steady diet of Elliott Smith and Steely Dan,” but its perspective is rooted in the realization that getting older can mean caring less about winning and more about simply making something worthwhile.
“The older I get, the less I think this life is about being richer or more famous than anyone else,” Pond says. “It’s about making your stupid songs, giving them everything you’ve got, letting go of the rest, and being grateful if someone decides to sing along.”
That idea carries into the video, directed by Scott Coffey and shot by Chase Pierson at Utopia Studios in Bearsville, N.Y., where much of Permanent Change Part 1 was recorded. Walsh stars alongside the children of Pond’s longtime friend Mike, who played guitar in Pond’s first band.
Pond describes the video as an attempt to capture the strange universality of feeling like you’re perpetually auditioning — for a role, a relationship, a job or even the person you hope to become. Eventually, he says, the goal is to let go of that audition altogether. For Walsh, the collaboration was a natural extension of her longstanding affection for Pond’s music. “I’m a massive fan of Matt’s (& Anya’s!) music,” she says. The pair previously worked together on “No More Tragedies,” a transcontinental collaboration filmed while Walsh was living in Australia. This time, they were able to shoot together in person, along with Marina, Coffey and the rest of the crew at Utopia.
“Learn How To Lose” offers another glimpse of the emotional territory Pond is exploring across Permanent Change Part 1, which he describes as “an endless, fading summer afternoon.” The album, he says, is about embracing imperfection, looking back on mistakes with pride and, ultimately, finding a moment in which to stop worrying about whether you’re measuring up.”
