Jameel Farruk celebrates a far-away city in “Lake Michigan”

Local singer-songwriter Jameel Farruk released a new song and video on May 31. “Lake Michigan” is a love letter to Chicago that was written under quarantine in Philadelphia.

The video, which is shot entirely in grayscale, begins with a series of famous Chicago sights, such as the river, the Cloudgate statue, the El train, and, of course, the titular lake. After the first verse, the video becomes more abstract, depicting a series of dancers, a woman walking on the beach, street performers, fireworks, and more, often showing two or more images laid over each other, as if trying to capture a series of memories and emotions that Chicago and Lake Michigan generate.

The song itself has a folkish bent, with the acoustic guitar alternating between strumming and fingerpicking as Farruk anthropomorphizes the Midwestern city: “I fall for the summer each time we meet / I love you, dear Chicago, like a one night stand.” The addition of electric instrumentation after the first verse adds a more ethereal quality to the song. This is clearly an artist’s rendition of a far-off place, not the city in which they currently reside.

“Lake Michigan” is one of Pic Records’ #QuarantineSongs. In advance of its release, Farruk and mixing and mastering engineer Todd Mecaughey released a “The Making of…” video for the song. Drummer Lucas Kozinski recorded his part at Sleepless Sounds, and Mecaughey mixed and mastered the track at Cambridge Sound Studios, but the video shows Farruk tracking vocals, guitar, and bass in his apartment.

Watch the video for “Lake Michigan” below.