Mal Blum - Pity Boy (2019)

A few months ago, Mal Blum put out “Things Still Left To Say,” their first new song since 2015’s You Look A Lot Like Me. Now they’re back with a whole new album, Pity Boy, that’s due out in July.

“Honestly, I think it was just, like, the next chapter of my therapy session,” Blum said in a press release about the album. “The last record was like, ‘Oh, okay, for the first time I’ve admitted to myself that I am struggling’ But after that, you have to take all that self-examination to the next step, which is: ‘Why do I do the things I do? What are these cycles in my life that are or are not helping me?’ That’s the place that I was in when I wrote almost all of these songs.”

Today, Blum is sharing “I Don’t Want To,” a song about rebelling against the things that society says you’re supposed to do, like pay your bills on time and being more honest and get your act together. There’s a sense that Blum recognizes that we all have to grow up sometime, but its chorus is a rousing pushback nevertheless: “I don’t want to, so I won’t,” Blum sings. “I don’t want to, I don’t need to, or I’m not going to, at least right now.”