PJ Harding & Noah Cyrus

1. Dear August 2. You Belong to Someone Else 3. Cannonball 4. The Best of You 5. Slow Train Comin' 6. The Worst of You

1. Dear August

About the Project

People Don’t Change

Whether or not you believe in fate, its steady hand might just place you exactly where you’re meant to be. It certainly brought PJ Harding and Noah Cyrus together. Their paths first crossed in Bali at a 2018 summer songwriting camp. Even though they were never properly paired, PJ wound up contributing guitar to Noah’s “Good Cry” and “wished they had a session together.” That wish came true a year later. At the same retreat in 2019, PJ and Noah unlocked the kind of chemistry that comes along once-in-a-lifetime. They penned four tunes for what would become her 2020 EP The End of Everything, including the title track, “I Got So High That I Saw Jesus,” the double-platinum “July,” and “Young & Sad.” Noah smiles, “From the moment we met, I just wanted to be in a band with PJ so bad! Even though neither of us expected to be here, it’s honestly my dream collaboration, and that’s not bullshit because I knew it immediately.”

Returning to L.A. in the fall, they kept writing without a schedule or a plan. In the face of the Global Pandemic, they continued crafting songs over the internet. This unfettered creativity against all odds gave birth to their 2021 collaborative EP, PEOPLE DON’T CHANGE [RECORDS/RCA Records]. Underscored by flashes of folk eloquence, Americana elegance, bluegrass energy, and country heart, the EP emanates light in a moment when it’s needed the most.

That light shines brightly on the lead single “Dear August.” Delicately plucked acoustic guitar and dusty mandolin echo under a confessional call-and-response between PJ and Noah. As their voices entwine, harmonies flutter through the hook which prays, “Dear August, tell me that there’s light at the end of all this starless night.” In some ways, it could be considered a spiritual successor to “July.”

“It was full circle and funny for us to write ‘Dear August’ after ‘July’,” observes Noah. “I was going through a lot. I suffer from anxiety and depression. We were in this cloud of darkness where it’s very easy to fall into bad habits. July and August 2020 were the hardest parts of quarantine for me. I lost my grandma, and I was looking to the future for hope. The song reminds me you will get to the light at the end of the tunnel. It may not be perfect, but you’ll get there.”

“At heart, this is really a raw, home made record.” PJ states. “There’s a strong folk tradition in Australia, which you can possibly feel. There’s certainly a lot of Nashville in there too. I feel like Noah is really the guiding force here. She’s the soul of this record.”

“This wouldn’t have happened without PJ,” counters Noah. “He put the music together, so I could do this. He’s the most talented dude I’ve ever partnered with. I genuinely admire him as a writer, singer, musician, and artist. Writing songs before, I honestly felt a little lost. It felt special to go back to my roots and make something with guitar and piano like what my dad made me listen to as a kid. I felt like I was able to put my true self into this. I could be who I am at the core—which is just Noah from Nashville.”

People have certainly felt their work as solo artists. In addition to collaborating with Noah, PJ has garnered a reputation internationally as a songwriter and producer working with the likes of Lennon Stella, Lil Nas X and Bebe Rexha, as well as helping to develop breakthrough Australian artist Ruel. In 2017, he stood out as “the most nominated writer at the Australian APRA Songwriting Awards. Meanwhile, Noah has quietly emerged as one of pop’s most daring, disruptive, and dynamic voices. Since 2016, she’s already built a diverse and deep catalog, including platinum hits such as “Make Me Cry” [feat. Labrinth], “Again” [feat. XXXTENTACION].

In the end, music from PJ and Noah just feels meant to be.

Timeline

February 12 Dear August (Track + Video)

March 19 You Belong to Someone Else

April 23 People Don't Change EP + The Worst of You (focus track)

"Dear August" Official Music Video

Out February 12

Lyrics

Dear August You Belong to Someone Else Cannonball The Worst of You Slow Train Comin' The Best of You

Dear August

Slowly
why’s the morning come so slowly?
When I got no one to hold me through the dark

Patient
They tell me that love is patient
But it never wants to wait on
my drunk heart

So I take all of my all of my all of my
Wasted love
And turn it into wine into wine into wine
In my cup

Dear August
Tell me that there’s light
At the end of all this starless night

Dear August
please don’t let me fall
Cause I don’t know
Where this road is headed anymore

Fading
Now the summer heat is fading
I spend every evening praying
For the dawn

Save me
Looking for someone to save me
Give me everything you gave me
but your scorn

So I take all of my all of my all of my
Wasted love
Turn it into wine into wine into wine
In my cup

Dear August
Tell me that there’s light
At the end of all this starless night

Dear August
please don’t let me fall
Cause I can’t know
Where this road is headed anymore

You Belong to Someone Else

The way you look when you cry makes me wanna confess to you
The way you wear that dress like it couldn’t mean less to you
And there’s no reason keeping secrets, maybe regret is a weakness

But all the jealous God’s can burn me down and start again

Cause you belong to somebody else
I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help it
And I know its wrong to call this sweet hell upon myself
you belong to somebody else

Don’t wanna come home late and make a mistake for you
its easier to let a heart wait than make a heart break for you
I give you pieces of my secrets like religion to believe in

And all the jealous God’s can burn me down and start again

Cause you belong to somebody else
I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help it
And I know its wrong to call this sweet hell upon myself
you belong to somebody else

Cannonball

I stumble back home and
Leave the door open
6 in the morning
I fall into bed

Your disappointment
It stings like an ointment
Just for a moment
And then I forget

Oh this cold indifference
boredom and bitterness
I can’t keep doing this
Night after night

I don’t want this anymore
but my heart’s a cannonball
dragging me under these waves
people don’t change

You smell expensive
But I know it’s rented
Boys can be poison
And still be rose scented

So I wash you off me
Cocaine and coffee
these days you stimulate nothing inside me but

cold indifference
boredom and bitterness
I can’t keep doing this
Night after night

I don’t want this anymore
But my hearts a cannonball
dragging me under these waves
People don’t change

The Worst of You

Are you capable of driving home tonight
or am I the one that has to get us home?
Handed you another chance to disappoint me and again you did me wrong

Am I really waking up alone again
In your bed and you’ve already gone?
Coexisting at its finest yeah we’re barely even trying anymore

And It feels like
All I ever do is
Pay for your excuses
To buy a little time

I don’t know why
I even entertain it
You’re never gonna change
Hell, you’re never gonna try

So why am I still trying to prove
That I can love the worst of you

Laying here just waiting on the morning light
To finally find its way under our door
living fast and dying slowly just two cold and lonely bodies nothing more

And It feels like
All I ever do is
Pay for your excuses
To buy a little time

I don’t know why
I even entertain it
You’re never gonna change
Hell, You’re never gonna try

So why am I still trying to prove
That I can love the worst of you

I do, I do
I’ll always love the worst of you
I do, I do
I’ll always love the worst of you

Slow Train Comin'

I see a slow train coming
Up over the hill
Still got miles to go
But even so
I feel the shaking still

The light at Thompson’s Station
In the last seconds of dusk
Paints a funeral
so beautiful
to the memory of us

And now I’m waiting by the phone
A slowly breaking heart that knows
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

The bones down by the river
Beneath the waning moon
While the crows feed on
The carrion
They’ll feed on us too soon.

I sold my heart for stolen gold
I played my part so I suppose
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go

I see a slow train coming
Up over the hill
Still got miles to go
But even so
I feel the shaking still

The Best of You

You say
No my love, that’s not the moon
That’s gods fingernail
And He’s pointing at you

saying
“the world is at your feet
So what you gonna do?”
No my love
That’s not the moon

And we sing old old songs
the whole night through
While the stars look on
I’m just looking at you
And when the words do come
They feel heavy as the truth

The best of me are just pieces of the best of you