Dakota Saylor

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

After lighting the fuse with his debut single “Letterbomb,” Harlan singer-songwriter Dakota Saylor returns with “Six Foot Deep”—a haunting, mandolin-infused ballad that wrestles with burnout, addiction, and the quiet panic of losing yourself while the world keeps moving.

Out Friday the 13th (June 13, 2025), the new single trades the interpersonal flames of “Letterbomb” for something colder, heavier, and far more internal. Driven by an R.E.M.-inspired mandolin riff and Wonderwall-era Oasis chords—buried under the weight of a blue-collar funeral dirge—the track is elevated by the soaring fiddle work of Natalie Tomlinson, a renowned eastern Kentucky musician known for her work with Sunrise Ridge and The Honkytonk Wranglers. Her bluegrass roots run deep, adding texture and tension to this moody blend of alt-country, folk, and mountain Americana.

“It’s a song about getting stuck in a downward spiral,” Saylor says. “You’re clocking in and out, going through the motions, pouring out your pain through a bottle—trying to feel something—but nothing fills the hole inside.”

With lyrics like “Six foot deep, two foot wide / How does it feel being buried alive?”, Saylor doesn’t shy away from the existential. But there’s poetry in the darkness, and even a strange kind of comfort. It’s a song made for long drives, dim rooms, and moments when silence feels louder than anything on the radio.

Six Foot Deep is the second chapter in a growing catalog of what Saylor calls “class-conscious folk”—a collection of raw, reflective songs rooted in the rhythms and reckonings of rural Appalachian life. Fans of Jason Isbell, Counting Crows, and Nebraska-era Springsteen will find familiar ghosts here.

The single will be available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all major platforms on Friday the 13th—June 13, 2025.