Especially Mim

Sunflower (Things We Lost In The Fire, 2001)

When I was eighteen I moved to New York City on an Amtrak train. I had an Ipod Nano at the time and had loaded it up with some random music from a few different friends. My friend Phillip had put a song I'd never heard on it called Sunflower by some band called Low and I remember being overcome by the songs' even tempered and quiet beauty. It was as if the song was rising from the ashes - and though it starts out sounding far away it keeps gaining momentum before it hits you over the heart with those opening lines; "when they found your body, giant X's on your eyes". I would listen to this one song on repeat while watching the midwest landscape slowly morph into the east with images of a dead body lying in a ditch, giant Xs painted over the eyes, passing through my mind. Though I loved this song and played it constantly I, for some strange reason, never felt compelled to dive further into their catalogue or listen to any of their other songs. I was happy with this one, perfect song I had come across. Fast forward 16 years later to two months ago while I was out on tour and my front of house engineer Alicia would tune the speakers to Low's Amazing Grace every night. On the first night she did this I asked what it was and learning that it was Low I thought that now, at long last, it was time for me to finally listen to more of their material and become a proper fan. So for two weeks I was listening to the albums - new and old - and becoming the Low fanatic I was always meant to be and then I opened the news one morning and saw that Mimi had died. Though I had been devouring their catalogue it was of course Sunflower that I put on first, the opening lines feeling more ominous and beautiful than ever before, thinking that when spring comes around, I need to plant a sunflower in her memory.