Keegan DeWitt Explains His 'Reluctance' To Love

Music video premiere for "Reluctance" by Nashville's Keegan DeWitt, along with commentary on the video's theme by director Will Holland, and an explanation of how the track developed from DeWitt, himself. "Reluctance" is the second of two videos to come in support of DeWitt's most recent limited edition "Two Hearts/Reluctance 7-inch" release, following dance-inflected lead single, "Two Hearts" which recalls Phoenix's penchant for indelibly warm, taut guitar pop, while B-side "Reluctance" is by no means indicative of any sort of inferiority to the lead single however, is a shimmering, reverb-drenched duet with Isaaca Byrd of The Bridges, who plays in his live band. A mutual rawness, or pluck, permeates both songs, which finds DeWitt again expanding his sound. As if DeWitt happened upon a confidence this year that matches his ambition.
DeWitt, singer-songwriter and film composer, originally hails from Oregon. His career has taken him from Brooklyn to Paris to Nashville. As a songwriter, DeWitt has shown in just a few years a vitality missing from much of what typically percolates out of Nashville. But it wasn't just the familiarity of his voice or the quality of his compositions that impressed his growing fan base and Paste, the latter of which dubbed DeWitt this year with its "Best of What's Next" tag. DeWitt also expressed a literary brio in his lyrics that didn't come off as contrived or overly highbrow. Instead, they painted a picture of a young man just as lovesick as his friends, but capable of articulating those fixations more thoughtfully than most.
When asked about the development for "Reluctance," DeWitt explained via email that the song had been with him for quite some time before being released, "'Reluctance' is a song I had for awhile, and I had been keeping it set aside from everything. Initially I only had a few small bits of the verse but something about that very first melodic phrase, 'I know I'm gonna have a hard time with you.' It really struck me and felt really tender towards the song. It took me about a year of holding onto it before I finally sat down to finish it." Indeed, it's not that these songs are necessarily more accomplished than anything on Islands or Nothing Shows. Rather, they herald the sound of a writer growing into his own, leveraging the rich framework of his past to inform the inspired promise of his future. Given his intriguing story, it'd be a shame if it were any other way.
The director Holland explained in an email: "I essentially loved the idea of how we always overly romanticize two major events between a couple. The first time they meet and the first time they kiss." The video complements the song's structure as it carefully follows a number of couples as a special moment develops for each. "I wanted to allow a viewer to witness small interactions between several couples that lead to an immediate pay off of an intimate moment. The video is, in essence, slowly paced. But it is also rewarding in the sense that you view small moments of interaction that are very real that end in a dramatized version of where we would all like to be at some point."