Premiere: Lewis Watson's "Little Darling"

For those familiar with Birdy, the teenage singer-songwriter whose cover of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love," helped propel her career (and bring her to the PAPER offices for a kitchen session!), Lewis Watson seems like her analagous male counterpart. Like Birdy, the super young (he's only 20-years-old) England native got his break after uploading to YouTube videos of himself performing covers of Bombay Bicycle Club's "Swansea" and Tracy Chapman's "Fast Cars" (and, yes, a cover of "Skinny Love," too). His covers caught the eye of Warner Music, who produced two EPs for Watson and our guess is a debut LP is not far behind. In the meantime, the singer-songwriter performed alongside Birdy at Shepherd's Bush Empire and is gearing up to release his third EP, The Wild, on April 2nd.

We're excited to premiere "Little Darling," from The Wild, a glimmery folk track that brings to mind the Avett Brothers, Fleet Foxes or his fellow Brits, Mumford & Sons. For each song on The Wild, Watson recorded alternate versions with different instrumentation that would appear on a separate EP and the track below is one of these alternate versions. The plaintive song has the polish befitting a major label deal but fortunately its luster hasn't caused it to be scrubbed of all emotion. But, while a part of us empathizes with Watson when he sings "I'll never find a girl quite like you" about a star-crossed love, another part of us thinks about the young adult's impressive career trajectory and wants to comfort him by saying, "You don't need to worry about girls yet when you've got record deals and concert tours!"

Bottom line? Expect to hear more about Watson in 2013 and listen to "Little Darling" below.