On Thursday, February 16, just four days after performing “All Around You” with the Dap Kings at the 2017 Grammy Awards and winning Best Country Album for “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth,” Sturgill Simpson released a new, evocative music video for the song, which takes on peace, love and Donald Trump. Watch the new video above.
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“It ain’t too hard,” Simpson sings. “A universal heart / Glowing, flowing, all around you.” That glowing heart motif is present throughout the video, in which a masked child finds a golden heart ring, which becomes a compass that guides her across the sea. Then she confronts a faceless but certainly familiar looking politician with giant golden fists, whom she thrashes with the golden heart before leading a procession of people through a door in a giant wall. In the end she uses her power to destroys a military arsenal — love conquers all.
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Simpson was a relative unknown before the Grammy nominations were announced in December. He earned a surprise Album of the Year bid for “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” (Adele would go on to win for “25”), but since then he has made himself known, including as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” on January 14. Between that appearance, the Grammys and the new video, no one will be wondering who Sturgill Simpson is again.
