Hear Richard Swift’s Previously Unreleased “Common Law”

On Friday (Nov. 1), Secretly Canadian released 4 Hits & A Miss, a career-spanning compilation by the late prolific musician Richard Swift. The album includes an unreleased song titled “Common Law.”

About the project, singer-songwriter Kevin Morby, who was a friend and collaborator of Swift’s, said:

There’s an old boy-scout myth I heard about as a child where, if you put the right person in the middle of the forest, armed with only a Swiss Army knife, they could build you a chapel.

When I think back on this myth I end up thinking of Richard Swift who, if dropped in the middle of the forest with only a $10 Radio Shack microphone, would somehow construct a studio and within that studio build you a chapel of sound. In fact, he essentially did exactly this at his own National Freedom studio in the middle of the Oregon woods, in a town called Cottage Grove where he recorded countless hours of both his own and other people’s music.

Those chapels of sound will, and I have witnessed it already, awe and inspire generations to come — in the same way that those stone chapels of early Europe do. Each leaves people bewildered and wondering: how was something so massive and so beautiful constructed with such minimal and archaic tools — and in Richard’s case, so quickly?

Once they’ve passed away, most artists seem to finally rest, their catalogs resting eternally beside them. But Richard, from somewhere in the great beyond, seems restless, and the work he began down here on earth continues. His last album, The Hex, was released only a few months after his untimely death in 2018 and now, with 4 Hits and A Miss, we have a collection of his most beloved songs all in one place, as well as a new unheard ever before track “Common Law,” recorded around 2012.

Whether you’re a casual fan or a Swift purist, 4 Hits & A Miss is either a perfect starting place or a destination for us devoted fans to find, yet again, something new to awe and inspire. Like a hidden room inside his already impressive chapel, there’s always something new to discover from our beloved friend and hero, the late great Richard Swift.

Below, hear “Common Law” and stream the compilation.