"Paradise Is Mine" is a song by Americanexperimental rock bandSwans, released throughYoung God Records on March 22, 2023, as the lead single for their sixteenth studio albumThe Beggar (2023). It was the first new music from the band since their previous albumLeaving Meaning (2019) over three years prior, excluding the limited-releasedemo tapeIs There Really A Mind? (2022) on which an early version of this song was featured.
Anacoustic rendition of the then-unfinished song, recorded by band leaderMichael Gira alone at his home studio, appeared as the first track on the demo albumIs There Really A Mind? which had been released in February 2022 tofundraise for the recording and production ofThe Beggar (2023). This song and the rest of its parent album was fleshed out in recording sessions that began inBerlin on May 2, 2022, and were finalized that August. The following year, on the day before the completed track came out officially, its release was teased with ashort clip posted on Swans' officialInstagram account. Then, on the actual day of the song's release, alyric video for the track was uploaded to Swans' officialYouTube channel.[1]
"Paradise Is Mine" was met with primarily positive reviews.Beats Per Minute described the "spiritual and surreal" track as having a "patient, foreboding build up" that also incorporates "weird wind instrumentation", whileConsequence summarized it as "a nine-minute experimental rock epic featuring droning vocals from Gira as he ponders our very existence".[2][3] The track is further characterized as "naggingly hypnotic" and "hauntingly seismic" byThe Guardian andLouder Than War, respectively, and is also recounted byAllMusic as "a steady crawl that gradually gains layers of swooping background vocals and slightly more dissonant guitar patterns".[4][5][6]
