I’m not morbid or a goth and I don’t think about dying very often
but the current situation has certainly made me a bit more conscious
of the increasingly real possibility that I could get this fucking virus
and if the wrong lemons line up it could have deadly consequences
From the outset I wanna say I know this isn’t likely
and I’m lucky as fuck compared to a lot of people around me
and maybe that’s part of the reason I haven’t really dwelt upon
how incredibly strange it would be to drop out of the world while everything else carried on
But tonight I was reading a John Le Carré book
and a scene in a soviet hospital suddenly got a hook
into my consciousness, and earlier that night I’d been reading that doctors in Montreal
are having to prioritize which patients to keep alive and which ones to kill
And for about five minutes I sat staring at the Le Carré page
thinking 'what if I went into the hospital and out I never came?
What would happen to my cat? He’s old and needs insulin every day
and he can’t just move, and who would take him, and where would he stay?'
And thankfully that horrible thought moved quickly into another
a more logistical concern about what would happen with all the stuff in my apartment
and I looked at these pictures on my wall, which I chose so carefully
and pictured someone I’d never met loading up a box or chucking them in the recycling
and I thought about all my bills, what would happen to my the athletic subscription?
Could I pass it on to someone? there’s still like ten months left in it
and the whole thought process was so strange and unreal
a life with so many details arranged, all irrelevant without the rat at the centre of the wheel
Like what about my shirts and my shoes and my new rice cooker?
What about the weird churchy bookmark I’m using as a placeholder
in this spy novel set in glasnost Moscow in the 80s?
The bookmark was just in there I have no idea from where it came
There is so much minutiae, so much detail, so much relief
that means nothing to anyone anywhere but means so much to me
and then I die, just boom, that’s the end
it’s so strange to begin to comprehend
What would I do? How would I act? Would I be conscious?
What started the whole thought was a Russian woman in the book in hospital
she was giving blood, stoic and unmoved, and it was a lazy stereotype but still
I wondered would I be able to die quietly and with grace and goodwill
Or would I fight it and make life difficult for everyone around me?
Would I have to make phone calls to arrange my end of life bureaucracy?
Would people visit? I guess not, it’s covid, I’d just die alone in a hospital
kinda brutal, but at least no one would see me in a state so miserable
I live alone so my ugliest moments are pretty private
my dignity would probably prefer to keep it that way right down to the wire
Or would it? Would I even care at that point? What goes through your mind
when you know you’re about to leave the world forever and you’re running out of time?
I don’t know, sure I’ll think about it more as the years pass
but I’m marking the moment when I first thought about the strangeness
of being alive and then not, having a life and then being gone
when I’ve thought about these things before its been someone else I’ve lost
Anyway, if I have unfinished music I’d sure like my friends to complete it
there's no rush but Gareth should add harmonies and Ryan’s in charge of mixing
and save the slides from my lessons, you’re all welcome to use them
I have a pretty cool collection of X-Men figurines you can go through and choose 'em
And what would the impact of my life have been?
Of course I know that there are people I loved and who have loved me
but when you really think about dying you trip into some strange questions
and they don’t have answers they don’t even have suggestions
So on a cold night in January 2021
I’m making music that will live on after my time has come
that I hope is some kind of minor contribution
to helping a few people push back against the pull of isolation
Epic, immersive songs that you disappear into, with rich layers of keys and ghostly vocal melodies conjuring a misty dreamworld. Bandcamp New & Notable May 2, 2022
Irish singer-songwriter Oisin Leech's acoustic folk music is characterized by its muted beauty and intimate, solitary quality. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 16, 2024
The latest album by Phill Reynolds, a project of Italian singer Silva Martino Cantele, takes listeners on an Americana-fueled musical ride. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 8, 2022
Singer-songwriter Henry Parker puts his own spin on the classic sounds of '60s and '70s British folk on this wilderness-inspired new LP. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 9, 2021
