December, alone, past the Christmas-lighted homes
We are going to the popup nursery
When we get there, I see, through the dim-lit aisles of trees
You are going to a different place than me
I panic, but I think, I'll see you on Friday of this week
No empty nesting as we separate today
I am running into you someday
By ourselves, and we won't know what to say
Losing a Friend is definitely one of my favorite tracks from the album. I really like the aesthetic of it and the way the recording turned out. It took so many takes to get it right. Finding the lyrics was also really hard on this one. I remember it being Christmas break in college and all my roommates were gone so I was all alone in our college house. I was going crazy. One night I was going for a walk and I came to this really beautiful tree-lined street. It was like 2 days before Christmas, completely dark out, the middle of the night, the street was all icy and there was no one around, and the first line came to mind, "December alone, past the Christmas lighted homes".
I think the rest of the lyrics came pretty easily after that, except for a couple. Namely the "pop-up nursery", "the dim-light aisles of trees", "you are going to a different place than me", and "no empty nesting as we separate today". I wanted to say the "Home Depot nursery" or "parking lot nursery" but neither of those fit. That was really important because I remember that so well, going to Rite Aid as a little kid at night and getting the Christmas tree in the strip mall parking lot.
I don't remember exactly what the micing situation for the guitar was but it was basically a semi-circle with 2 large diaphram condensers on the edges and 2 small diaphram condensers in the middle, all equally spread apart. I was trying to so hard to sound like Headless Horseman by The Microphones on this one. That's the perfect recording.
The earliest record of this song is a voice memo from June 1, 2020. It used to be called Night Shift after Lucy Dacus:
By June 4th it was a lot closer to the final version, including the melody:
The next recording is from November 10th and is the 2nd section and its melody, feat my old coworker Alex talking about some nonsense over Zoom:
I always kind of thought it would be better if the song was just 3 verses, the solo, then one last verse over the same chord part as before. Very nice and simple. But I really liked the lyrics to the 2nd section and so it had to stay how it is.
By December 31st the song was totally finished except those couple of lyrics:
The decision to have a trumpet solo was probably because of Communist Daughter by Neutral Milk Hotel. They're pretty similar. Chet Baker Sings was a huge influence on the trumpet. I wanted it to sound just like that. Also Nick Drake for the guitar sound and whole song.
Personnel:
Ibanez Artwood AC240-OPN Guitar
Jupiter JTR700 Trumpet
Recorded at 24bit 96khz
Unmastered Version:
