It’s taken a few years of elbow grease, but Prateek finally finished polishing one of his prized folk tunes. After a multiple renditions — including an appearance on the 2020 edition of Sound of Our Town — the Boston balladeer has nestled his tune “Diamonds” in the perfect “swampy blues” setting for 2022.
“While each version was good, none of them quite lived up to the vision I had in my head until I sat down with producer Sean McLaughlin,” Prateek explains. The final cut of the tune (which dropped last week, October 28) officially folds the well-worn tale of fleeting romance and everlasting heartache into Prateek’s musical lore. “The stars ain’t diamonds,” he with a twinge of rustic gruff on the chorus, but his knifelike lyrics sure can cut like ’em: “We build our walls / We lock our gates / But we’ll all be / In the dirt someday.”
“I knew it was the one because it sounded so much bigger than when I just play it live, by myself, yet it still conveyed the spirit of the song,” Prateek elaborates to Vanyaland. “It just sounded right.” Considering he released an actual live recording of the song in 2018, that’s really saying something.
Dig Prateek’s new gem below.