Upstate singer-songwriter Sam Burchfield’s new single, “Profit,” is, for lack of a better word, heavy. Not in terms of the music, which is basically just Burchfield’s wiry acoustic guitar and a stomping foot. Lyrically speaking, though, it’s a different story. Throughout the verses of the song, Burchfield takes on the greed that can eat away at even the noblest intentions. Over a dark, bluesy riff, Burchfield sings, “We’ll build a wall to keep heathens out, so we don’t hear their wretched weeping,” detailing the separation between rich and poor that can poison society.
“It’s definitely heavy,” Burchfield says. “The acoustic version definitely brings the lyrics out a little bit more. It’s basically about how greed is this driving thing that corrupts people. And if you listen verse by verse, it definitely has some biblical references. It talks about this idea of the garden and the desire for more that leads to a bit of a downfall, and then the mentality of, ‘We’ve got to build a wall around what we have to keep people out of it.’”
Burchfield isn’t just talking about corporate greed, either.
“Even good things, like building a church,” he says. “Well, churches can become corrupted by profit too. ‘The Devil is always working’ is the final lyric and I think it has multiple meanings, the workaholic nature of our society, how it’s so money-driven. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing if you’re doing it motivated by greed.”
The full-band version of the song appears on Burchfield’s most recent album, “Scoundrel,” an 11-track disc that dives deep into matters of the heart, the mind and the spirit.
“I would say a whole lot of my songs have deeper and deeper layers within them,” he says. “A lot of them are spiritual. It’s just me trying to think deeply and honestly about the things I see in the world and how they work, and I think the record certainly covered a lot of similar topics of good and evil and spirituality, so it was on my mind when I was making that record.”
“Scoundrel” is a startlingly diverse album, mixing blues, country, rock and folk with ease, which Burchfield says wasn’t intentional.
“We mostly recorded live,” he says, “so we weren’t necessarily going for anything other than the sound of us playing.”
It’s an important point for Burchfield, because he says he consciously avoids chasing any particular genre when he makes music.
“I never want to put myself in a box,” he says, “so my whole career, I’ve jumped around to different sounds, whatever feels right. My curiosity drives me.”
Burchfield comes by that stylistic restlessness naturally. He’s been a musical chameleon since he started playing guitar back in middle school, and you can probably thank his family for that.
“I had really cool older sisters who were putting on more hippie things like Pink Floyd and Sufjan Stevens,” he says. “My dad was always listening to old country — Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson kind of stuff — and my mom listened to disco music. That was the background of my growing up, and I pulled different things out of whatever I was hearing.”
Burchfield and his band, The Scoundrels, will bring that diverse sound to the Radio Room in Greenville on April 28, and he says he always looks forward to playing there.
“Growing up in the Upstate, it’s one of the closest venues that’s actively having people come out that’s near where I grew up,” he says. “It’s nice because I do see some familiar faces when I come back. There’s a bunch of awesome fans every time we come through and I always really appreciate it.”
Want to go?
Sam Burchfield & The Scoundrels with Mourning Dove
Radio Room
Friday, April 28
radioroomgreenville.com
Related Topics
- Radio Room
- Sam Burchfield
- Upstate Beat
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source https://greenvillejournal.com/arts-culture/upstate-beat-sam-burchfield-brings-diverse-sound-profound-lyrics-to-greenvilles-radio-room/
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