There’s something about putting a cowboy in space that I really like. The boots, the spurs, the stubbornness of someone who thinks they can keep going on their own. Then you put all that confidence somewhere impossibly big and let it start to fall apart. That is the person I picture in “Moondust”.

For me, the song comes from that gap between wanting an adventure and wanting to be home. You can want to get away so badly, then find yourself somewhere unfamiliar wishing somebody would tell you how to get back. Space gives me a way to make that distance feel enormous.

I don’t need to know the whole history of the drifter to care about them. I’m more interested in what they have left: an old suit, a map torn in half, a little reminder of Earth folded into a shoe. I like writing with objects like that. They give me something I can see, and they let a bit of the person through without explaining everything about them.

The porch is important to me for the same reason. There is this huge, strange world around the song, and then a memory of somewhere ordinary cuts through it. When I think about home in these lyrics, I think about that sort of detail. Somewhere you could sit. Someone who might be there. A place that doesn’t need you to explain yourself.

The chorus is much more direct. “Is anyone out there?” There isn’t a clever way of dressing that up, and I don’t think it needs one. The drifter is tired and wants an answer. As the words come round again, I hear someone trying to keep the connection open, even though they don’t know whether the message is getting through.

That’s also what I like about the artwork: the moment beside the radio, waiting. The planet is right there through the window, but it is still a long way away. I can imagine staying at that desk, listening a little longer, because getting up would feel too much like giving up.

And then there’s the cowboy hat by the crater. That image stays with me. The thought of someone finding it and tying it to a window, where it can catch the dawn, brings the song back towards home again. Something from this strange journey ends up somewhere familiar. I’d rather leave a little room around that image than explain exactly what has happened.

I haven’t given the song a neat ending. The voice is still calling. To me, there is hope in that, even with all the loneliness in it. Someone is still trying to be heard, and there might still be somebody listening.

“Moondust” is out now. You can listen here or watch the official lyric video below. If you want to spend a little longer with the words, the song page has the full lyrics, artwork and release details.