In January 2020, songwriter Kevin Morby witnessed his father collapse from a medical event while visiting his childhood home in Kansas. In a state of shock, the singer spent the evening looking at old family photos and fixated on an image of his father as a young man, looking, as Morby states, “full of confidence.” The experience forced Morby to confront both the idea of mortality and the passage of time — and, after an extended sojourn in Tennessee, these reflections came together in the form of his upcoming album, This Is a Photograph, out May 13 via Dead Oceans.