LISTEN / SHARE “THAT’S NOT WORKING FOR ME TODAY”
LISTEN / SHARE “CRY TEARS SAD”
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DANA LEE’S UPCOMING ALBUM, BIG TIME, OUT OCTOBER 15, 2026 VIA RAM ON RECORDS
PRE-SAVE BIG TIME HERE
Photo Credit : BNB Studios // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Dana Lee’s got the perfect recipe for hard-hitting country-folk confessionals. The Nelson B.C. singer-songwriter mashes old-time country and indie rock into gripping, heartfelt reflections on coming apart while trying to get it together. On her latest album Big Time, out October 15, 2026 via Ram On Records, Dana Lee twists these big emotions into authentic reflections and cheeky musings that capture the reckonings of her roarin’ twenties.
Today, she’s sharing two new tracks from the album. “That’s Not Working For Me Today” is a breakup song, a song about the long loneliness that follows when an important person leaves your life,” explains Lee. “My goal with this song was to capture the sentiment of when you have no choice but to let your sadness be sadness. You can’t always shape-shift your feelings. And perhaps that’s the only way to carry them. I adore Ryan Funks’s feature on pedal steel. Kacy Lee Anderson added perfect backup vocals. Liam Duncan added the delicate touch of mellotron. This is my personal favorite on the album.”
LISTEN / SHARE “THAT’S NOT WORKING FOR ME TODAY”
“Cry Tears Sad” is the oldest song on the album. “I wrote it close to ten years ago. The original meaning, a reckoning with my chaos capacities, has since evolved into an anthem for rebellion. I’ve played it exclusively acoustically ever since it was born. The creation of this full-band version was rather excruciating for me. I couldn’t imagine the essence of the song, a solo sound-off, making sense in just any soundscape. Liam and Austin Parachoniak came to my rescue with a crisp, driving, electric sound.”
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MORE ABOUT BIG TIME
Produced by Liam Duncan (Boy Golden) and Austin Parachoniak (Del Barber, Leith Ross), Big Time is a dirt road country record that draws as much from Big Thief and Wednesday as from John Prine and Gillian Welch. “The vision was for the album to encapsulate all the genres that inspired it,” Dana explains, and she deftly threads the needle of these eclectic inspirations throughout. This sound is informed by Dana’s early musical experiences: playing in an old-timey bluegrass band; participating in break-out jam sessions with her deeply musical extended family; and honing her powerful voice by singing Mennonite hymns in three-part harmony at church.
Big Time jives, sways, and thrashes through Dana Lee’s journey as a “big time lonely small-town girl.” The title track sets the scene, with a teenage Dana looking out into the prairie horizon beyond her hometown of Steinbach, Manitoba, preparing for an abrupt, and permanent, departure. The songs that follow see Lee moving to Winnipeg, capturing “exactly what my twenties were like.” For Dana, this meant chaos, connection, partying, depression, breakups, and redemption—all while immersing herself in the city’s legendary music scene.
LISTEN / SHARE “A SONG ABOUT PLAYING POOL” HERE
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These songs brim with immediacy, as Dana breaks apart while trying to make sense of it all. One minute, she’s making “a damn circus out of my heart,” the next she’s wondering if she’ll get her smile back, or if it’s “gone forever.” Dana’s savoury vocals and timeless lyrics shine on the “A Song About Playing Pool”, which finds her starting to find peace in creating her own daily routines, while “I’m So Down”, a playful track led by fiddle, mandolin, and suitcase percussion, captures self-doubt creeping back in, as she sings: ‘I got so low that I saw heaven / made it back in time for 7 / now I’ve got all night to think about / all the ways I’m missing out’.
“Cry Tears Sad”, which Dana had written as a mournful solo ballad in her downtown Winnipeg apartment a decade ago, becomes a raucous, electric waltz on Big Time, while the trotting “Leave a Trace” sums it all up heartbreakingly well: ‘Should I find my roots and settle down / or keep on rolling with this train? / Been so good to me some days / but it’s been so hard for me today’.
WATCH / SHARE “LEAVE A TRACE” HERE
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Big Time sounds like a Winnipeg record not just because it was recorded in that city with some of its finest musicians; the record, and Dana Lee’s work, embody the city’s DIY, grassroots spirit. The songs for Big Time emerged over years of back-and-forth songsharing between Lee and producer Liam Duncan (“What a dream,” Dana ponders, “to have friends who you can process life with through songwriting together”). Dana raised funds for the album by screenprinting and selling t-shirts that read: “I bought this shirt to help Dana Lee make an album. “And they’re strategically designed for crop possibilities” Dana explains, smiling: “if you want to keep it vague, it can just be ‘I bought this shirt to help Dana Lee’, and you can keep me out of it and make it read ‘I bought this shirt’!” Lee also designed the album cover and single artwork for Big Time, and with a history of handmaking CD cases, the DIY approach is imbued across her artistic process.
The closing track on Big Time finds Dana Lee finding peace, entering a new phase of life. “Through all these certainties and uncertainties,” Dana explains, “it’s a song about just being present in the moment, finally making peace with the chaos.” Dana is currently thriving as part of the fringe country scene in Nelson, BC, an outpost of Canada’s rural honkytonk renaissance. “It’s community building through dream-making, with so much excitement, support, and the sense that we’re doing this ourselves.” With the wind at her back and the sun shining her path, Dana Lee is set to keep singing her truth.
PRE-SAVE BIG TIME HERE
BIG TIME TRACKLIST
1. Big Time
2. Big Time Reprise
3. Circus
4. When I Get Drunk
5. A Song About Playing Pool
6. That's Not Working For Me Today
7. I'm So Down
8. Cry Tears Sad
9. Leave A Trace
10. Big Ball