Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra), whose new album, The Past Is Still Alive, is out this Friday, has shared the album’s latest single and final preview with "Hawkmoon," a rebellious road song and stirring remembrance of the first trans woman they ever met: a poet, punk, and fellow traveler named Miss Jonathan. The track arrives with a thrilling heist film of a music video, shot along the desolate highways and dusty deserts of a small New Mexican town called Tucumcari. On the run after a string of bank robberies across the southwest, Segarra stars alongside writer, actor, and musician Denny (FX’s Pose, Apple TV+’s City on Fire), and together they queer the timeless cool of American outlaws and iconography. They cruise in a classic car, rip shots from the bottle, duck in and out of diners, roll in cash on a motel bed, and bask in the glow of neon signs shining through the night, while channeling inspirations like James Dean and River Phoenix. As “Hawkmoon” reaches its cathartic, rocking climax, the story ends in a poignant piece of spoken word: “Follow me to a place where everyone we love is still alive.” You can watch the video, directed by Jeff Perlman, here:

“‘Hawkmoon’ is a song about running away,” Segarra says, “a trans song, and memories of the first trans woman I ever met. Miss Jonathan was a German rapper, poet and train-riding crusty homeless kid who loved to wear the skimpiest outfits she could get away with and was a surprisingly great shoplifter. We became best friends for a winter, before I learned to play music in New Orleans, and I would ride shotgun in her beat up car and search for abandoned houses to sleep in. Meeting her changed my life and opened doors in my mind about gender, though it would take me many, many years to feel free enough to expand within myself. I have always wanted to honor her, since I have not seen her in decades and wonder if she is even alive. She suffered a lot of violence the last time we saw each other, and I think about her often.”

“Hawkmoon” follows recent singles “Colossus of Roads,” “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive)” and “Alibi,” which respectively offered a paean for queerness and outsider culture, formative memories of leaving family and home behind, and a reckoning with addiction and a plea to break through to a loved one who might already be gone. Like each of these songs, The Past Is Still Alive is full of profound reflections and personal stories grappling with time, memory, love, and loss. The album is both a memoir and a roadmap, built on twin pillars of peril and promise that have forever been foundational to this country. It has been praised as “arresting and artfully autobiographical,” as the New York Times says in an expansive new profile written by Lindsay Zoladz. “I get a kind of Springsteen, us-against-the-world feeling,” added Conor Oberst, who can be heard on The Past Is Still Alive, in addition to producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee) and collaborators such as Anjimile, Meg Duffy, Mike Mogis, Phil Cook, S.G. Goodman, and more. “There’s this fighting spirit and world weariness to a lot of the songs, but the delivery is so effortlessly, nonchalantly cool.”

You can read the full piece from the New York Times, where Alynda Segarra discusses losing their father a month before recording the album, riding the rails and busking in hobo bands, using music to experiment more freely with gender identity, honoring queer elders like Eileen Myles, and why right now "is absolutely the right time for me to be alive, and writing songs,” here.

Alynda Segarra will accept The People’s Voice Award at Folk Alliance International’s 2024 International Folk Music Awards—an honor presented to an individual who unabashedly embraces social and political commentary in their creative work and public careers—tonight. It will be followed by a conversation between Segarra and NPR Music critic and correspondent Ann Powers. Then, on February 25, they will begin to perform the music of The Past Is Still Alive on a spring tour of dozens of shows throughout the US, UK, and EU. In partnership with PLUS1, $1 per ticket will support This Must Be The Place and their work to distribute Naloxone - the lifesaving medicine that reverses an overdose, and will be available for free at every Hurray for the Riff Raff tour stop. Find the full list of dates below and tickets at nonesuch.com/on-tour.

HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF ON TOUR