Will Butler released the first in his week-long series of songs based on 'The Guardian' headlines (listen)

Arcade Fire’s Will Butler is a few weeks away from releasing his debut solo album, but this week he’ll also be putting out a series of non-album tracks. The premise is he’s writing a new song every day this week based on a news story on The Guardian. The first, “Clean Monday,” is out now. Here’s an excerpt of what he had to say about it:

I was reading the Guardian’s live coverage of the forthcoming Greek proposals of how they’re going to pay off their debts, when a little blurb popped up explaining that the Greek markets were closed today because it was “Clean Monday” – the Greek Orthodox equivalent of Ash Wednesday. It was an amazing/hilarious (well, maybe mildly amusing) coincidence to me that the Greek ministers were scrambling and figuring out how to avoid strict austerity on the day that Lent starts.

And all this scrambling is just to figure out the next few months. It’s gonna be a long winter, and a long spring, and maybe a really long summer for Greece. But my fingers are crossed.

Listen below.

Will’s tour hits NYC on March 5 at Bowery Ballroom with TEEN (tickets) and March 7 at Baby’s All Right (sold out).

—