TUNES // Darlingside – Hold Your Head Up High

Post by Misha

There’s something almost painfully courageous about making sincere music. Like without even a drop of cynicism or irony. Harmonized vocals, acoustic guitar, inspirational trumpets – the whole honest-to-god thing. It’s harder somehow I think, (but in a way I can’t totally explain) to make good music that is kind and affirming rather than hardened and tragic. Something like this:

Which, don’t get me wrong. I love the hard and tragic stuff. I’m a clinically depressed person living in Los Angeles, which means that I basically never get to wake up on the bad days and look out the window feeling gratified that at least the clouds look the way I feel. Instead, waking up to another perfect day, I have to gather whatever tortured solace I can in feeling personally misunderstood by the sun.

But this song is not for those days. This song is for days when the cheerful expectations of the sunlight don’t feel so exhausting, and its warmth is met with gratitude instead of unearned resentment.

UK folk pop band Darlingside have a new album, Extralife, coming on Friday (2/23) via More Doug Records / Thirty Tigers. The record is about mourning what we have lost while looking to the future – taking in its view both the misery that could come to pass if nothing is changed, and the opportunities to change the future for the better. They’re hitting the road this spring with a run in the states that includes dates supporting another one of our faves, Twain. Dates and tickets here.