The Decemberists Share New Song From Movie Adaptation Of Colin Meloy’s Wildwood

If you've navigated your web browser to stereogum dot com today, you likely know Colin Meloy first and foremost as the frontman for longstanding bookish indie-folk greats the Decemberists. But for a segment of the population, Meloy is best known as the author of the Wildwood Chronicles, a series of fantasy novels aimed at teens and preteens, set in his native Portland and illustrated by his wife Carson Ellis. (We talked to him about it in our We've Got A File On You interview.) Wildwood, the first of those books, has been adapted into a stop-motion animated movie, and unsurprisingly, the Decemberists are on the soundtrack."The Better Part Of Bravery," the first new Decemberists song in over two years, is on the official Wildwood soundtrack along with the original score by Dario Marianelli. The soundtrack is out today, thus so is the Decemberists song, a folk-rock rambler with some real nice harmonica and banjo action. "The biggest part of bravery is in the letting go," Meloy sings on the chorus. On his Substack, Meloy shares the following:Travis Knight, the director of the film, had asked me years ago to write this tune and I was, as the immortal grand dame of musical theater once ...