There’s no mystery behind the title of “Phone in a Pool,” a song from Ben Folds’ new album with the New York City chamber ensemble yMusic: Folds wrote it after his cellphone ended up in a swimming pool. Speakeasy premieres the song today.

The tune is trademark Folds, pairing wry, slightly melancholy lyrics with robust piano that provides a foundation for elegant string and horn parts. Folds has long tinkered with orchestral passages on pop albums, but yMusic added a new dimension, with Folds calling the sextet “the centerpiece of the arrangement.”

The North Carolina native says the idea for the song came to him after he chucked his phone into a pool one night at a hotel. “I was sick of being tethered to it and feeling guilty for not answering people while I had been on stage,” Folds says by email. “Realized that was silly and impulsively tossed it.”

Before he could leave the scene of the dunking, though, a rescuer turned up. “I didn't think anyone was around to have seen this, but as it turns out, Kesha was there and dived in with all her clothes on, retrieved the phone and then advised me to put it in rice to dry out.”

“Phone in a Pool” comes from “So There,” which Folds describes as “a hybrid between pop and chamber music.” It’s the latest album in a career that started in the mid-’90s with the alt-rock trio Ben Folds Five, and has included three solo LPs and various collaborations including 2010's "Lonely Avenue" with author Nick Hornby and 2011’s “Nighty Night” as part of 8in8 with singer Amanda Palmer, author Neil Gaiman and OK Go singer Damian Kulash.