Irish singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow has shared an acoustic version of his recent album's acclaimed single, 'Steven'.

James released his sixth album The Less I Knew shortly after its predecessor Grapefruit Season. When the 39 year old visited his hometown of Malahide, he was overwhelmed with thoughts about his old life. He questioned what it meant to him, and wondered if he could return back to a simple life there. Although he decided he no longer wished to revisit the past, these thoughts inspired the new album and single 'Steven'.

The track is named in honour of James' late cousin, who died very young. He was a guitarist himself, and served as an inspiration to a young James. The song is revealing and heavily emotional, while at the same time being a gorgeous tune.

Now, James is sharing an acoustic version of the song. Of the new track, he said "this is the song that instigated this entire album, I wanted to give it its own moment."

"I wrote it coming out of the first lockdown in 2020, went to my hometown thinking maybe I might want to move back, at the time nostalgia was impacting me like I'm sure it was everyone. The second we drove into the place I knew it wasn't where I was supposed to be. All these memories started flooding in, some good, some bad, so many faces from the past. I didn't want to go backwards.

"One of the people I thought about was my cousin Steven who passed away when we were young. I hadn't thought about how much he impacted me, how seeing him play guitar had lit something in me, how much I looked up to him. It was a beautiful memory, one that led me to go home and write the entire lyric in about 10 minutes, then bring that energy to the studio and build an album around it."

The acoustic track draws out even more emotion as a beautiful acoustic ballad with layers of guitar and piano.

Listen to 'Steven (Acoustic)' here: