NQ Arbuckle Covers “All Apologies”

Love Songs for the Long Game out May 19, 2023

NQ Arbuckle On Tour with Whitehorse, Third Toronto Show Added (June 14, 15, 16 @ TD Music Hall)

NQ Arbuckle adds “All Apologies” to the band’s small but instructive library of covers, a collection that also includes songwriter Vic Chesnutt and Nova Scotian poet Alden Nowlan. NQ’s take is found on Love Songs for the Long Game, the forthcoming album out May 19, 2023.

Echoing the original’s minimalist production, NQ’s grungy vocals and acoustic guitar are united by a set of drums that resonate like freezer-burned wedding bells. Standing in for the cello line is a steadfast but unassuming synth, a plucky banjo and NQ’s hearty, warm laugh. With In Utero’s 30th anniversary approaching this fall, NQ Arbuckle’s timing with the cover on his new album – however circuitous – is just right.

Written as an ode to his wife and child, Kurt Cobain described “All Apologies” as “peaceful, happy, comfort,” in the 1993 biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, by Michael Azerrad. “All Apologies” seems to reference the parts of ourselves, or others, that we may not like, but must eventually accept if we want to stand in the sun together. NQ Arbuckle sees it in a similar light.

“It is a song about marriage. I think the notion of being ‘all apologies’ speaks to the push and pull of living as an individual and within a relationship of equals which requires a lot of compromise,” says NQ. “I also think it speaks to the complexity of relationships where you can be in the sun and buried at the same time. Then the last lines speaking to Two becoming One …resignation, acceptance, over and over again.”

In the long game, repetition is inevitable. Listen to “All Apologies” here.

Love Songs for the Long Game is out May 19, 2023 on Six Shooter Records. 

TOUR DATES:

KINGSTON, ON: The Grad Club, April 22  (solo)

SARNIA, ON: Imperial Theatre, May 18*

HIGHGATE, ON: Mary Webb Centre, May 19*

MEAFORD, ON: Meaford Hall, May 24*

LONDON, ON: Aeolian Hall, May 25*

GUELPH, ON: Royal City Church, May 26*

PETERBOROUGH, ON: Market Hall, May 28*

HAMILTON, ON: Bridgeworks, Smokestack 2023*

ESSEX, ON: Harrow Legion, May 20*

RIDGEWAY, ON: The Sanctuary, May 31*

PARIS, ON: Dominion Telegraph, June 1*

KINGSTON, ON: Blu Martini, June 2*

OTTAWA, ON: NAC, June 3*

PARRY SOUND, ON: Stockey Centre, June 4*

TORONTO, ON: TD Music Hall, June 14* + 15* + 16*

*w/ Whitehorse