For years, the versatile singer-songwriter Django Haskins—also known for his work fronting The Old Ceremony—has been playing “Afraid of Love” at his sets; until recently, though, the song never made it onto any of his albums. (Which are many: Just this spring alone, he’s released both Beforetimes 1 and Beforetimes 2; you can read the INDY review of the former here.) 

“Afraid of Love,” from Beforetimes 2, now premieres on the INDY website today. It’s a slow, reassuring affirmation of the pursuit of romance—the kind of song you might expect to encounter in a Gene Kelly movie from the 1940s—with Skylar Gudasz joining in, for part of the song, for a duet.

“I wrote it as a kind of love letter to the jazz standards I grew up on,” Haskins says, “but also from an earnest place, saying to myself that I needed to realize that fear of fulfillment (and of losing it)—it’s something that can define your life if you’re not careful. When I play it live, I usually whistle an improvised solo (just for lack of extra hands), but on the recording, I thought a jazz banjo solo brought in a suitably off-kilter texture.” 

Listen to “Afraid of Love” below. 

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Sarah Edwards is culture editor of the INDY, covering cultural institutions and the arts in the Triangle. She joined the staff in 2019 and assumed her current role in 2020.