the brief

a haunting exploration of the loss of the 'person' in dementia and the moral quandary / duty that poses for their partners

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Jesse Cook's Once pulled strongly at my spidey song sense, and I was quickly sure there'd be a song in it. There was but it was very slow coming forward. Initially, I really only had the title and, for the first few months, I thought it was going to be another eco/poli-flavour karosong, a warning about the rise of right wing ideologues around the world. I thought the 'darkness' of the title was a metaphor for fascist tyranny in the service of an inhuman neoliberal corporate ideology.

Which would have been a good song, But it wasn't about that at all.

The falling darkness was dementia. Perhaps Alzheimers. My own. Soon.

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I remember you when we met,
so young, so full of life
you lifted me to the sky and
twirled me like a ballerina

i thought the dance would never end
but it did —

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Well that's the 'message' I got when the song's topic started clarifying in early August. At the time, I had just gone through a number of concerning mental lapses and was increasingly worried about dementia. So the message terrified me. Literally. To my core.

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I watched it end in your eyes
like bombs ripping the fabric of the sky
til one day there was no one there
just a stranger didn't know me

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That intense fear lasted less than a week, until the song revealed itself further. Dementia was involved, but not mine. It was a death bed scene, but not mine. It was an assisted suicide, a 'mercy ending' for the narrator's long-loved but lost-to-dementia partner. The song would center on the difficult questions someone in that situation must process. Whatever they decide to do.

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it was that stranger finally convinced me
you were no longer you, your body just a shell,
that thing you feared so much
that you made me promise to stop if it needed

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But my terror had done what the energies intended. It had 'locked-in' the song emotionally. The triggered fears were so overwhelming because the song itself would be the most powerful karosong to that point. It would be months before those emotions started letting go and I could sing the song — especially the chorus — without tearing up or other emotional upheaval.

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as darkness falls
take my hand, hold me tight
as darkness falls
I will be with you to the end

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Unlike most karosongs to that point, a good half of the lyrics channeled more like poetry, 'just' by writing them down in the song's lyric sheet, then working out how those words fit into the flow of the song.

The lyrics continued the trend of increasing sophistication I had seen in the 3.1 songs. But now they jumped an order of magnitude in how much they said with so few words.

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I see your eyes fluttering —
is that the butterfly of your soul rising to the light?
straining to be free? but which soul? which you?
the you i loved or this shell?

or has your soul already left?
is there any part of you still there?

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Nothing in the scene is described, not the narrator, not the lost partner, not the bed, the room, nothing. But every listener will see those details. The pure economy of the lyrics in building the scene, and the problem, and the responsibility, and the ultimate decisions that are made and acted on is breath-taking.

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i don't know, i cannot know
just what it is that i'm setting free
if anything at all . . .
but i hope it's you, the you I loved

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There was another sophistication that blew me away once I understood. In Jesse Cook's instrumental track, the chorus had four phrases and I first thought that the two 'as darkness falls' phrases above simply repeated to make the four. But then I got that no, there was no repeat, that the second two phrases would be instrumental only. The timing is the same as the lyrics would have been if the repeat were sung.

Why? To give the listener breathing space, time to absorb.

The lyrics were structured so that the two choruses each came after a major revelation/realization about what was going on: the first when the listener would fully grasp that this was an assisted suicide; the second when it became clear that this was an act of deep love, intense sorrow and even a little hope on the part of the narrator.

I am always awed by karosongs. At their existence. At their depth. At their humanity. None has awed me more than this one.

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There is a third intense realization at the very end of the song. But no spoilers here. Have a listen.

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so flap your wings and be free my sweet
rise up towards the light
if it's true perhaps we'll meet again

so flap your wings and be free my sweet
rise up towards the light
If it's not true, then it's goodbye my dear
adieu

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Post-script

As darkness falls was the only 3.2 song 'finished' before the winter of 2019/20 in Australia that ended with Covid-19 and the Laos Chaos. I even made a mix of it before I left Canada that I shared with a number of exes and other folk. (Look for it in the song's vault.)

So close but no cigar — the song wasn't quite finished.

It was just in those few 'so flap your wings' lines, just the difference of a beat — one way or the other? maybe? maybe not? — but those few lines took months for me to 'figure' out.

I actually got tired of singing the song and started to skip it in my daily recording sessions. But it came back as the whole/full karo was emerging that summer of 2020, and was an important piece of that change in my singing.

Those last lines finally resolved in early October '20, in the same short period that the three earlier 3.2 songs also finalised.