Dan Pallotta is sharing his first new single since the release of his 2023 sophomore record, Winnebago Dreams. The folk singer-songwriter from Massachusetts has chosen to explore deeply personal and cathartic themes on “House on the Reservoir,” which he describes as being about his own “triangulation between [his] dad and his father.”
The acoustic guitar led track features plaintive harmonica and piano, the production’s bedrock to centre Pallotta’s emotive vocals and moving lyrics which depict a tense and repressed relationship between his father and grandfather.
“It split me into pieces, and I sold my soul for parts, inside of that house on the reservoir.”
Pallotta explains that “House is on the Reservoir” is about “seeing that you have taken responsibility for pain, transgression, betrayal, regret and anger that never belonged to you and that were never yours to take responsibility for in the first place.”
The core truth of lived experience in the song reveals Pallotta’s ability to “still […] have empathy for the people for whom you shouldered it out of a recognition that it’s something ancient, and probably didn’t belong to them either.”