Track: Stephen Cummings (The Sports) unveils superb new single ‘Carry Your Heart’ in readiness for new album ‘100 Years From Now’.

Last month we brought to you news that the legendary Stephen Cummings from Australian icons The Sports (and with a prolific and highly successful solo career) was releasing a new album ‘100 Years From Now’ in the aftermath of a stroke, made in collaboration with Robert Goodge of the legendary I’m Talking and other old friends. Cummings has just released the magnificent single ‘Carry Your Heart’, out through the tremendous Cheersquad Records & Tapes, as a taste of what’s to come.

‘Carry Your Heart’ is soaked in a glowing positivity carried over sparkling acoustic guitars and mandolins which twinkle in the firmament. The track is reflective and posed as a layered chorus hovers high above the mix, before Cummings’s vocals enter: poignant and yearning, deep and profound. Cummings’s voice is steeped in a bluesy tone, far from what you would expect: whiskey-soaked and melancholy yet carrying a message of hope in the face of adversity:

Every moment is a golden one
For him that has the vision to recognise it as such
Not very much
Every moment is a golden one
For him that has the vision
Every moment

The strings weep behind the chorus and the vocals, adding a cinematic scope. This is a moving track that seems to have incorporated the vicissitudes of life and pain – both personal and societal – and delivered a pathway to resilience, defiance and hope. It is easy to read into the lyrics an acknowledgement of Cummings’s past travails and it epitomises his indominable spirit and endless capacity for creativity:

‘100 Years From Now’ is now available to pre-order for release around 5 May 2023:

Feature Photograph: Kathleen O’Brien