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Entries We Love: Jack Rabbit, 'New Year's Eve'

Hometown: Los Angeles, Calif.

Pairs well with: Crying after the party

Jack Rabbit, the duo of Mo Donegan and Andy Leon, says "New Year's Eve" is about a forbidden high school crush – and its Tiny Desk Contest entry plays out like an epic love story, complete with queer yearning, heart-swelling melodies, a spectacular bridge and devastating regret. The video begins as Donegan and Leon's complementary voices tenderly recount the roots of a secret kinship. Then the band builds and the story fast-forwards five years, erupting with an avalanche of what-might-have-beens. "And we'd kiss bodies intertwined / Changed after that night / Trace the things I'd memorized / Finally get to call you mine," they sing with such a hopeful fervor that you almost believe they could rewrite history with a pen of pure will.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Elle Mannion
[Copyright 2024 NPR]