It’s been three years since the disbandment of indie rock icons Low, originally formed by husband and wife duo Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker in the early ’90s, and a newly resurfaced interview sheds light on what it was like for the pair to write songs that were obviously about their marriage, with Sparkhawk noting that there are some things it “sucks to be reminded about.”
While speaking to the couple on behalf of The Great Northern in 2022, journalist Steve Marsh noted that some of their songs seemed to reference relationships, and he inquired, “How often has the writing process been emotionally revelatory to the relationship?”
“Yeah, that comes up. Sometimes you listen to something and go, ‘Oh, wow.’ And it’s pretty easy to… I don’t know,” Sparkhawk replied, with Parker finishing his thought by saying, “See where it’s coming from.”
He added, “Yeah, sometimes it’s pretty easy and obvious, and you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s the way it is, I guess.’” Parker then explained, “Never once have either one of us said to the other one, ‘I don’t think you should say this, because this is too personal. We’ve never said that.”
Marsh then asked if either of them had “ever heard something and maybe thought you had to course correct,” to which Sparkhawk responded, “I would hope that that conversation would have happened.”
“It’s never a surprise,” Parker went on to say. “I go, ‘He’s singing about this,’ or, ‘He feels this way.’ It’s never a surprise, so it’s not like, ‘What? What happened? What did you do?’”
Sparhawk continued, “Yeah, ‘You did what? You feel this way about me? I didn’t know that.’ Sometimes it’s about difficult things that maybe you’re like, ‘Yes, this is about something that sucks to be reminded about.’”
Parker then offered, “But one vein running through it all is that it’s all human experience and emotion. It’s nothing nobody else hasn’t heard, felt, or seen. So, in that way, that’s how it connects. Granted, we can be pretty cryptic with the lyrics. There’s lots of room for interpretation.”
She then concluded, “There are still times where we’re doing an interview and you might talk about a song and what it means, and sometimes it is like, ‘Oh.’ Not necessarily about our relationship.”
Sadly, Parker passed away not long after the interview was published, following a years-long battle with ovarian cancer. Sparhawk subsequently disbanded Low and moved on to other musical endeavors.
The post How Low Got through Songs Obviously about Their Marriage: ”That Sucks to Be Reminded About” appeared first on VICE.
