Video: Hallelujah the Hills – “People Keep Dying (And No One Can Stop It)”

From I’m You, out now on Discrete Pageantry.

I wish the songs I love would stop being so goddamn appropriate to our current situation but so it goes. Welcome to 2020. Pour yourself a stiff one.

Many years ago for our honeymoon my wife and I went to Italy and visited the Capuchin Crypt in Rome. It contains the artfully arranged bones of 3,700 dead monks. The idea, apparently, is to remind us of our mortality. My favorite section contains a clock made out of arm bones with an inscription that translates to: What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you soon shall be.

Yep. Might sound glib but it’s true. Give or take 50 or 60 years, which is just a meaningless blip in the universe, our time will come. Can you take this fact and artfully arrange it? Hallelujah the Hills does.

Ryan Walsh says, “It’s a heavy song from a heavy album, and people have been asking about or pointing to this particular song frequently as things are getting worse and worse with COVID-19 in the U.S.A. The truth is, this song is about the baseline human condition that we’re all gonna die. Sadly in this current situation, we actually could’ve stopped some of these deaths if we had an inkling of competent leadership in the country. But this song was always about confronting that terrifying aspect of life as a way of realizing how special every single day is. It’s really hard to do right now, so, personally, focusing on creative things, like making video art with your friends, is a decent way to try to stay sane.”

Staying sane is key. Don’t freak out.

We’re all gonna die. Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit.

Hallelujah the Hills: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.