Some of the best love songs never use the word "love." Just look at Jason Isbell's modern classic love song "Cover Me Up." Love is shown within the lines and spaces. It's shown in the small details -- boots left by the bed and blooming magnolias -- and tender actions, like the quiet forgiveness of past sins. Country-folk rockers The Mulligan Brothers take a similar subtle approach to the love song with the gorgeous "The Deal."
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"The Deal" captures the rapturous feeling of spending time with a soulmate. It's the kind of feeling that makes even the most mundane days downright heavenly.
"Streets of pure gold ain't what's saving my soul," lead singer and songwriter Ross Newell sings. "If you told me that heaven is just like that night then maybe I'd start actin' right."
Newell says the song was born out of his real-life love story.
"I've never been able to write the standard issue love song. But I'm very much in love. There are no 'I love you' lyrics in this song. It's more like a proclamation that I'm in love in the big times and the little times," Newell tells Wide Open Country. "It's a love that is bigger than anything I've been taught. It's the only bearable, eternal option."
Check out the premiere of The Mulligan Brothers' "The Deal" below.
Based out of Mobile, Ala., the Mulligan Brothers are made up of Newell (vocals, guitar), Greg DeLuca (drums), Ben Leininger (bass) and Melody Duncan (vocals, violin, piano). Their album Songs For the Living and Otherwise will be released June 1. The record is the followup to their sophomore album Via Portland.
The Mulligan Brothers are currently on tour across the U.S.
