Written by: Dave Cantrell

As stated when SEM previewed a stream of their debut album Low Country, when listening to the music Arrica Rose and Mark W Lynn make as Dear County ” one can feel embraced as if in the arms of a warm homecoming even as the thorns of life’s many scrapes draw blood,” and nowhere is this more apparent than on this shaky sure romantic tearjerker that manages to both cry in its beer and come out smelling of, umm, roses. Featuring starring roles for both our lovebird principals – it pays to hit that link up there if you’re not familiar with the near-storybook tale of indie circuit love that brought these two together – the track is blessed with a commanding vocal from Ms Rose that splits the difference between torch song and a crying country-blues ballad, the singer’s voice at times so quavering with hurt love is seems meant to take the keening delicate place of the absent pedal steel we’re primed to hear in a song like this. Though one could spin a prize wheel of individual album tracks to pick the first single off of Low Country, the pure classic heart-rending nature of “Oh My Darlin'” was, now we think of it, a most natural choice. [feature image: Dear County]