More than forty years after penning one of the most unforgettable choruses in pop history with Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny.” Jim Keller is still writing music that sticks with you, though these days, his hooks cut deeper than a phone number scrawled on a bathroom wall.
His latest single, “Black Dog”, is another taste of his forthcoming album End of the World (out October 24), and it’s a track that confirms Keller’s late career reignition is as vital as it is surprising.
For centuries, the black dog has prowled as a metaphor for depression—an uninvited shadow that never quite leaves your side. Keller doesn’t run from it or romanticize it. Instead, he sizes it up with a cool, unsentimental eye, delivering a song that feels less like confession and more like confrontation. The dog comes when it wants, he tells us, but Keller refuses to roll over.
Co-written with Byron Isaacs (The Lumineers) and recorded with Adam Minkoff (Graham Nash, Doyle Bramhall II), “Black Dog” grinds forward on a deep-pocket groove, dressed in wiry guitars and the glow of vintage organs. The arrangement doesn’t wallow; it struts. There’s swagger in the rhythm, even playfulness in the keys, as if to suggest that keeping your head above water sometimes means leaning into the beat and daring the darkness to keep up.
Keller’s voice, weathered but unbowed, sells it. There’s grit in the rasp, a lived-in authority that makes lines like “He comes when he comes, and he leaves when he decides not to stay” hit harder than any clinical diagnosis. He’s not pleading for rescue; he’s letting you know what survival sounds like.
“Black Dog” hits hard, but it never collapses under its own weight. It burns because it faces the darkness head-on while refusing to let go of its defiance. As the second single from End of the World, Keller isn’t just reflecting on a career—he’s showing how to move through the wreckage with your chin still up.
The record drops October 24th, and New York fans can catch him bringing that fight to the stage on December 9th at Littlefield in Brooklyn and December 12th at The Colony in Woodstock.
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