Folk singer-songwriter Nathaniel Bellows has released his upbeat new single “Works For Me.” An anthem for introverts, “Works For Me” is a down-to-earth toe-tapper that declares loneliness as an empowered state. The song delves into the importance of personal boundaries and learning how to defend our space. PRESS HERE to listen to “Works For Me.”
“In this era of personal wellness, terms like “selfcare,” “vulnerability,” and “boundaries” have become aspirational notions of living authentically,” shares Bellows on the new single. “‘Works for Me’ is a song about defining one’s own territory (both mentally and physically) despite potential consequences—socially, romantically, professionally. It’s a song for anyone who has come to define—through experience and introspection—the conditions for a safe, sane, functional existence.”
Making a name for himself as a stark but emotive storyteller, with a voice and lyrics that are as deep as they are rich, Bellows has received acclaim from NPR, The New York Times, Pitchfork, Paste, American Songwriter, Americana Highways, and more for his previous albums Three, Swan and Wolf (where each song was paired with one of his original illustrations), and The Old Illusions as well as for his work as the sole lyricist on Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Unremembered which was inspired by 13 of his poems and illustrations. Bellows has also drawn comparisons to Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Bruce Springsteen for his raw, soulful, and emotionally textured songs that are equal parts grace and grit.
An accomplished musician, poet, novelist, and visual artist who originally wrote music as companion pieces to his other artistry but never recorded the songs to put them out in the world, Bellows’ poems have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Academy of American Poets “Poem a Day” Program, the Poems of New York anthology, The Golden Shovel Anthology, and many more as well as in his own published poetry collection Why Speak? (W.W. Norton) which was called “gripping...the book’s power depends on the slow accumulation of an inner world” by The New York Times Book Review and was pronounced “a smart and powerful debut” by Library Journal. Bellows is also the author of two novels: On This Day (HarperCollins) (“A triumph,” The Los Angeles Times) and Nan: A Novel in Stories (Harmon Blunt Publishers). His short fiction has been published in The Paris Review, Narrative, Guernica, Redivider, The Best American Short Stories (selected by novelist Michael Chabon), and more.
