Stand in the Joy

William Prince knows he’s got the perfect voice for sad songs—a canyon-deep croon that feels like a warm embrace in your darkest hour. But after working through the death of his father and split from his partner just before their child was born, on 2020’s Juno Award-nominated *Reliever*, the singer-songwriter from Peguis First Nation is eager to show he’s more than a tear-in-yer-beer troubadour. *Stand in the Joy* resides at the same intersection of folk, country, and classic rock that heroes like John Prine and Neil Young orbited in the early ’70s, but Prince is approaching it now from a different perspective. As he achieved a level of commercial and critical success that alleviated lifelong stresses about paying the bills, Prince also met the new love of his life—and that newfound balance of professional and personal contentment couldn’t help but yield a batch of songs brimming with optimism, humility, and grace. “It’s so much more romantic to sing about the whiskey and the hardship,” Prince tells Apple Music, “but I’m kicking against that. I’m really tapping into the goodness and the joy in my life. I was trying to make a happy record, so my family can look back and say, ‘You know what—he enjoyed his life with us.’” Here, Prince provides a track-by-track guide to finding his happiness. **“When You Miss Someone”** “I wrote this song just before the pandemic hit, and I didn’t realize what it would become and how we’d be missing everybody in that time. But even this song has a hope and joyful beauty to it because isn’t it special to have people in our lives who mean so much to us that, when we’re apart from them, we miss them? It’s pretty universal, but it speaks to my wife-to-be and my son, for sure. I even think of my dad in there sometimes—like, I wish he could see all this stuff that’s happening to me.” **“Only Thing We Need”** “This is about wanting to hold on to those simple, fleeting moments, like going back to Peguis First Nation and getting to see my family after a long time away. Moments like that really shift your focus—like, at the end of this run, is it really going to matter how many things we acquired? I’m just going to wish I had one more day. I don’t want to wake up and have missed being present in my life.” **“Tanqueray”** “‘Tanqueray’ is me answering the question of ‘How did you meet her?’ So, it’s kind of a spoken story. ‘Tanqueray’ plays on those first feelings of love and excitement when you’re getting to know somebody: You’re just starting to reveal yourself to them and share these secrets, and the red wine and the gin are flowing, and you’re being more vulnerable, and all these new sparks are flying. It’s like being drunk in love, really.” **“Young”** “This song speaks to the time when I was really wondering what my purpose was going to be. I was a teen and really falling for music, but Peguis doesn’t really present a lot of opportunity to see live music. So, at 16 years old, I would drive around and listen to everything I could get my ears on and emulate it, hoping to be something like that one day. The 37-year-old me today would try to assure that person that you don’t have to worry so much about where you’ll end up because it’s all going to sort itself out.” **“Broken Heart of Mine”** “I strategically put this song where it is on the album to represent a turning point at the end of Side A. As easily as I’ve chosen to be upset, frustrated, mad, worried, and discouraged in the past, I could also choose joy. So, this song is paying respect to those things that were heavy before, and kind of enlightening my audience and being honest with them. Like, it’s my own choices that have broken my heart, too—it’s not just my circumstance. So, I’m trying to grow up and be better than those things—to be a person who makes everybody around them feel good all the time.” **“Pasadena”** “Pasadena is so bright and hot and sunny, and it just represents the love I have. It feels like my partner, it feels like sunshine and gold, and it paints a picture on the map of all these places that we’ve been and that we continue to learn from.” **“Goldie Hawn”** “This song is my wife. I chose to write about all these great women that have qualities in common with her. Goldie Hawn is just so loyal and classy and funny, and she survived Hollywood and didn’t lose the goodness in her—that’s my partner, working through her pain and working through her life that wasn’t easy on her, but she still stayed gold. She still stayed that beautiful person that I’ve fallen in love with. This song is my very public declaration that I’m not available!” **“Easier and Harder”** “This is about not being ashamed of the reality of love. It’s not all roses. You have to calibrate your love to each other, and that gets easier and harder the longer you stay together. There’s a lot of things that become automatic, and you wonder how you ever lived without them before. But then, there’s also the challenges of having somebody be so intimate in your life that you’re together 24/7. I wrote the song the morning after John Prine passed away. We were listening to his songs, having coffee, and my partner was talking about love—and how you try to do your best for one another—and that inspired the song.” **“Peace of Mind”** “This song was a pure moment of joy for me. It’s like, holy shit—you’re living the life of a songwriter, like you always dreamed, and there’s an audience for you and places to go and play. And when you mind your own business and just focus on that, it’s really beautiful to see how simple your life can become. I don’t need 20 good friends. I just need a handful. My bills are paid, my fridge is full, I don’t have to worry about gas in the car anymore. So, thank you for this place where I can just relax and enjoy this...while still being hungry for it all. I don’t want to get too soft and comfortable.” **“Take a Look Around”** “This is the lesson for it all: Don’t forget to take a look around when you touch down at all these gigs, and you have to go to a different place right away, and you’re tired. Remember when you were wishing for this. But at the same time, when I go on my walks at home, I think, ‘Look at your health. Look at your life—you’re OK. You wake up next to the love of your life. Treat her well and don’t get lazy. Be that guy that she fell in love with and always be pursuing your wife.’ And then seeing my son shooting around in the driveway, playing hockey, always reminds me to choose joy and be happy.”

The perfected sonic palette on William Prince's latest record, Stand in the Joy, rests in the careful mix of his deep, gentle baritone with...

William Prince makes sincere, heartfelt music that touches one's soul and captures the spiritual feelings embedded in our connections to each other.