Tattoo

I’ve been chewing on a series of songs about relationships, particularly the cycles of a long relationship, for some time.  Some of what became the Tattoo EP had been finished for some time, and some of it didn’t find its full expression until recently, but all of it ends up being pretty timely for this moment. 

In my personal life, as well as in the larger world, it feels like around every corner there’s something that used to feel untouchable, unbreakable, unshakeable that now feels like it’s out of reach. Maybe it’s the natural course of things. Or maybe the gnawing sense of grief that surrounds it all speaks to a way that it all could have been different.

Part of growing up is learning when and what you have to let go. And in this collection, that’s exactly the question that’s in front of us. The title track was written the night after the American elections, when I suddenly found myself with more clarity than I had wanted on the ways that this very personalized grief could be expanded into a much bigger perspective.

At that moment, as today, it feels like we’ve all lost something, watched as something that seemed too big to fail has suddenly crumbled into an irreparable mess, and there seems to be nothing anyone can do to stop it, or fix it.

And yet… love persists.