Joe Jackson Premieres Title Track From ‘Fast Forward’

The second song from Joe Jackson's upcoming album, Fast Forward, has been released. You can listen to the title track from the Soundcloud widget below.

"Fast Forward" finds Jackson mining a territory he's explored many times throughout his career, navigating the complexities of modern life. In this case it's a society were people are "either miserable with millions or dying for a dime / Desperate to live forever or lucky to live at all."

As he told Stereogum, "'Fast Forward' has more words than anything else I’ve written. It just kept growing and growing. I imagined having a time machine, and hitting ‘fast forward’ until I’m far enough in the future to look back at the present and make sense of it. We’ve got the past all figured out (or think we do) – and we can imagine the future as anything we want. So it’s only the present that’s baffling and maddening. And I think we’re living in a confused and anxious time. The commentary out there is extremely divided, either ‘we’re living in a golden age’ or ‘we’re all screwed.'"

He also gave some insight into how he wrote the song, and how the music inspired the lyrics. "I actually started with the chord changes, which constantly cycle through different keys until they end up where they started, only to start again," he continued. "That triggered thoughts about how things are always changing, yet in some ways stay the same, or go backwards."

Jackson recorded the song in New York with a trio of jazz musicians -- guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Brian Blade and violinist Regina Carter -- and his longtime bassist Graham Maby. He singled out Carter's work on the bridge for capturing the essence of the song. "In my mind she represents the Moon looking down on the Earth, both saddened and amused by us humans. And it’s just our attention that fades out at the end; the song goes on forever..."

Fast Forward will be out Oct. 2. Shortly before its release he will begin a five-week North American tour.