The Coral share new track ‘Drifter’s Prayer’ with John Simm

The Coral have shared a new single this week that features actor John Simm – listen to it below.

• READ MORE: The Coral on their epic new album: “‘Coral Island’ is the world on our own terms”

Recently, the band spoke to NME about how Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy and Life On Mars lead actor Simm hooked up with the band for the release of two new albums in 2023.

The new song, ‘Drifter’s Prayer’, is the first track to be taken from ‘Holy Joe’s Coral Island Medical Show’, which will be released on September 8. Another album, ‘Sea Of Mirrors’ will also be released on the same day, and is inspired by ’60s Italian spaghetti western films. The first track from that, ‘Wild Bird’, was shared last month. 

The latest song release features narration from Simm. James Skelly says of the collaboration with Simm: “Nick had this poem and we thought that we’d do something with, like a murder ballad. He also had this acoustic, country-style riff so we recorded it in the studio and it fitted with the words perfectly but it needed someone to do the narration.

“We just messaged John, he’d already been to a few gigs, and he said ‘yes’ straight away. Nailed it perfectly. He’s a pro. It’s great to be able to see someone like that working, someone who is just that good at doing their job.”
Nick Power added: “We were talking about having a spoken word track on the album, but maybe bringing an actor in to voice it. I had the idea of this fairground worker looking back on his life, sort of like a eulogy to the old travelling carnival world and its customs. How those people were their own community, constantly on the move, drifting through England.
“And this person coming to terms with the modern world leaving him behind, in a way. John Simm came in and understood it right away. I think it took about two or three takes.”

Speaking to NME about the collaboration with Simm and Murphy on the albums recently, Skelly added: “We sort of know John. He came to all our early gigs before we were even signed by Sony. He was an early champion of the band.
“It was one of them where [keyboardist] Nick [Power] had this idea and we said ‘Who could do it?’ And he said ‘I’ll message John Simm, he might do it.’ He said yeah and he came down, did it, just nailed it perfectly and I was like ‘Ah that’s what a professional looks like.’ We just hung out for a bit, lovely fella.”
He continued: “Cillian and John are both great actors. If I was cast in a film I’d be looking at them two. It’s that thing when you work with or you see a true top of the level professional work, you feel privileged and lucky to have even had a little hint of working with that.”

Meanwhile, Lazarus, the planned sequel series to Life On Mars, has been scrapped, its creators confirmed earlier this month, “with a heavy heart”.

The sequel was confirmed last year and was set to see screenwriter and creator Matthew Graham reunite with writer Ashley Pharoah on the script for the follow-up show.

Taking to Twitter, Graham and Pharoah revealed that the show will now not be moving forwards, due to “hurdles” that were “financial not creative”.

Life On Mars aired for two seasons between 2006 and 2007 before a three-series spinoff Ashes To Ashes. It tells the story of DI Sam Tyler (Simm) who had a car accident in the year 2006 and finds himself taken back in time to ’70s Manchester. He learns that he has a boss in the shape of Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), an old school DCI.