Originally from Philadelphia, Dimitri Manos and Ryan Eggleston first started making music as Golden Boots two decades ago. The band have gained and lost members along the way, but the core duo have remained the beating of the project for that entire time. Now relocated to Arizona, it is a fellow Tucson-band, Barely Bipedal, that originally wrote the band’s new stand-alone single, a cover version of She Just Wanted To Watch The Sky.

Golden Boots’ take on the track seems to bring the conversational lyrics to the fore, accompanied by a classically alt-country backing of slide guitar, banjo and the steady tick of the drumbeat. Like the best cover versions, it highlights the qualities of the original, while simultaneously re-imagining it in Golden Boots’ own image.

Read on for Barely Bipedal’s explanation of the song’s emotive backstory and then take a listen to Golden Boot’s version below.

“This is an old song I wrote about something that happened when I was a kid. I was spending the night with my friend so we could go to his cousin’s, and my classmate’s, house for her sister’s birthday. Her sister was a couple of years older than me, and we were playing spin the bottle, and I was supposed to go to the closet with her… maybe my first real kiss…. I was nervous and shy and excited and not sure what would happen. But before we got to go, adults came in, looking serious. Another girl, another cousin of theirs, had been struck by lightning getting ready to come to the party. I didn’t actually know her, but because I was spending the night, I went with my friend and his family to the hospital while the doctors and nurses tried to save her  life. People prayed. People cried. You just never know how a day might go.”

James Patrick Jordan of Barely Bipedal

She Just Wanted To Watch The Sky is out August 1st. For more information on Golden Boots visit https://goldenboots.bandcamp.com/.