Here are 4 indie musicians who lost a parent at a young age and later incorporated the experience into their music.
1. Soko
Soko’s dad died suddenly of an aneurysm when she was 5 years old.
“We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow” — “I can tell that you didn’t have to face your mother losing her lover / without saying goodbye / because she didn’t have time.”
“Ocean Of Tears” — “God has a plan to kill us all / And every day I wake up from a crazy dream where I’m looking for my Daddy and I know he’s here…And I’m too aware of mortality…I am haunted now.”
2. Carolyn Berk of Lovers
When Carolyn was 15 years old, her mom died of cancer.
“Take Good Care” — “You said the best thing I could do for you / Is to take good care of myself / And you became a ghost before you wanted / And my heart is the home you’ve haunted / And every time I hear the sirens sing / I feel footsteps inside of me / Like your heart beating, like my heart beating.”
“Seven Years” — “These scars of mine are more than skin deep / And there are ghosts in the air I breathe / And these ghosts will haunt your dreams / They’ll taunt you in your sleep / Saying, ‘Oh, we know about the love you lost and need’… My darling, you’re only fifteen, but in seven years you will see.”
“Tiger Square” — “My mother said to keep away from there / from Tiger Square / But she’s been gone now for so long, so long.”
3. Robert Schwartzman of Rooney
When Robert was 11 years old, his dad died of cancer.
“Go On” — “I remember when we held each other while the world changed / I was 11, you were 13, we never seemed to act our own age / How could we know in a heartbeat things would never be the same?”
“Holdin’ On” — “I was young, I’d seen it all / A cemetery in the middle of a super mall / I went to school, I never learned / How it feels, how everything you love can burn…I don’t know what I’ve lost / And I don’t know how to get it back”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXptwL-8BnU
4. Molly Rankin of Alvvays
When Molly was 12, her dad (John Morris Rankin of The Rankin Family) died in a winter car accident in Canada when his car skidded off the icy road and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
“Next Of Kin”: “No color to his skin / Inform the next of kin…I left my love in the river / The only one I see / I lost his hand in the current.”