In a world where knowledge about anything is at our fingertips, an intentional lack of knowledge can sometimes feel strangely relieving. As in, ‘I don’t have to “think” about this, I can just have a “feeling” about this’ (and we just have a lot of feelings…#meangirlsquote). This works in no place better than music. Our featured artist today, Lab Partner, is a mystery. There is no bio, Wikipedia page, website or anything and we decided to ignore our stalking tendencies and let it be. Then we listened to his track “Daughter of a Haberdasher” and we didn’t understand a word about what it was about, and we also just let it be.
“Let’s just not think today, Tonemama”, we said to each other. “Let’s feel this one out.”
The feeling of this track is emotional, gentle, kind (can music be kind?), and deeply moving. We decided if we were going to Google anything about this track it would be the definition of “haberdasher”, which turns out to be a man who makes men’s clothing. It offered us no more clarity into the song. Yet as we read the lyrics we couldn’t helped being moved by some of the poetically striking lyrics: “She was the daughter of a haberdasher/ At arm’s length, you know he never reached her” and “She was the daughter of a haberdasher/ And ever since her leaving, he pokes his finger with a pin.” We have no idea what these lyrics mean yet sung in the heartbreakingly vulnerable voice of the lead singer over an easy/ non-demanding guitar accompaniment, it reached us. Isn’t music the weirdest? How does it do that? We can only attribute that to the genius of Lab Partner and his exceptional gift to launch his song right into our unexpectedly receptive hearts.
Best listened to: In a deep meditation on a rooftop somewhere
Listen for this moment: There is no standout moment in this song, and we mean that in the best way – it starts and ends as the full story and should be listened as such