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for one seven for one, which is the crisis text line If you're outside the Eu S chair, the list of international hotlines at suicide, dot o to all of this on the song exploder website and in the episode show notes. Arlo Parks as a singer and songwriter for London in January, two thousand twenty one sure released or debut album collapsed and sunbeams it at number three on the UK charts and she won this year's Brit Award for breakthrough artist last year me called her song black dog, the years most devastating song in this episode she breaks down black dog, which he made with producer John look up which Lahti that I call him LUCA here's.

Arlo Parks on song exploder. My name is auto parts I started working on this song when I was still at school. I was eighteen at the time and I remember coming to this apartment that my manager actually had in Central London. king on the song with LUCA at the time. I've been listening to Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens, the

I have been writing all these little damage on guitar and wanted to create something that had this minimal guitar based feel, and I I have to the apartment on LUCA just started, working on this very minimal guitar lip with those heated courts I was like. Oh, this is exactly what I wanted and I didn't even have to tell you. That I like to watch is starting from whether it's a sin Europe cannot work at all. It has to be spas. won't be too much going on around it. Otherwise I lose the thread and I immediately felt transported.

It seemed like there was this real sense of melancholy, this real sense of nostalgia and because it was so sparse and so minimal, it felt like it provided the perfect backdrop for going into labor that were quite complicated and dark eyes going through a lot the time and just all kind of spilled out with me in that moment,. The song surrounds my best friend We'd been friends since we were fourteen, we met in spanish class and she there's really struggling with deep the passion and anxiety and seeing how struggling was really kind of putting this sense of heaviness. In my heart- and I didn't know how to help her on it. At this song to kind of speak about what she was living, but through my eyes, I have

in this poem that I had written kind of about her situation and Islam, the the foundation, I guess of the song. Would you be open to reading the poem yeah? Of course,. You promised you'd be there in the morning and I only half believed you because last time you said that you almost want. I should forgotten that by now, but I remember, there was a way been a part of you, some little agony, Smith, is hot and painful. Something I could not touch, I hear the smile in your voice today, though, string of dark red silk. So soft, faint and rather well. Did it come from. for months it seemed the curtains were always closed. It seems like you were always angry at me and tide of yourself, it seemed like he wouldn't survive this ignore in the jewel of hype. Behind my right eye rolling

onto your side to crush a tear with the side of your rest, like a tie, in blue flower we were also scared. I think, I'd written that poem, maybe a week before for the past, Month, I think you know things had been really bad and I've been writing about a law. But I guess I had this fear surrounding putting it in a song. It was something that felt very private and very painful, but at the time I was thinking about Alison and it just fine. well like the right moment, because I felt like I was. I was really in it and I wanted to be honest, and I wanted to speak about what I was living on for some reason. That day was some kind of alchemy and I was like okay I'm going to try and sing about this chords and I always kind of singing the melodies in my head I'm not lying I'd like the grief right off your lips, into my head.

legs. I do have I would take that pain onto myself if it would free you in some way, if it would make you feel better and immediately. I was thinking to myself. Ok, I'm in a creative, as that feels very dense. You know, I'm gonna feel with imagery and to feel almost overwhelming. Oh, I want to kind of package. with as much rich content as I can, and then I was all these different things and then I thought to myself actually know. Maybe it needs space see you. Honestly, it's tough I was pacing around the room, just in writing riding in my head and humming to myself as kind of laid down the job

and the pace on it was almost like building a body. You know the base gave it feat and the drums gave it bones and then the synth I mean it sounds very wishy washy, but it almost felt like the soul. It almost felt like that thing that you can't quite grasp and as the elements were added, I found it very exciting, because something I had probably initially envisaged does just guitar and voice gathered this real body to it and it felt like it really supported the idea in the way that I sang things and that's why I really love working with LUCA, because we both have a very similar sense of when we need to add things and when we don't so, I really trusted the way that he went with it.

and then I went into the pre course. I guess building up the picture that sense of desperation. I would do anything let's go here. Let's do this. I want to get you out of this. Somehow, by superfruit do you bad. Do you all being eaten, comical with my language is something that makes me a better writer, because I'm full to go right to the heart of what I mean, for me. It was about going, the core of the friendship and idea of care it was like. I would do it need to get you out of your room and I remember saying those words to hire as well.

I saw this cartoon that described depression as this dog you carry around with you and sometimes it bites and its a bit feral, and sometimes it sleeps all creeps up on you when you're not expecting it, and then the law asked frame of the cartoon is all these different people in the park with their different dogs, following them around, and I guess there was that notion of you know well alone, and it gets To this point also, whether person has learnt to kind of tame that. Odin learned that doing retain or going for walks. The dog ends up sleeping for most of the day in that kind of gradual, progression to this. The message I dunno it just spoke to me- and I remember writing down that phrase- black dog in my notebook and as I was king through the book to find poem that I knew I wanted to base the lyrics about? Then? I remember just seeing not briefly in and then, when you got me what I wanted it to be called that just made sense.

The I love when the vocals feel like that intimate when it feels like that one most being sung into your air. I want it to feel like I'm sitting beside you, as I sang. I remember, recording this with a lump in my throat on the verge of tears, and so it wasn't so much of a performance it was more just like In this right now, you know when I write a song, all the emotions bubble to the surface and come out through my voice I said no, you, Does It,

backing; vocals, always the last piece of it. So I added BB's on the chorus to create something that felt very soaring and gooey and free juxtaposed with that drum them quite plodding and grounded yeah so cool, I think just leave that higher it so is like one of my favorite backing vocals to I've ever done, and they just getting high up in my register for that moment, and it just felt right. One. To be somebody's guardian angel and just sweep them out of whatever their feeling that kind of knowing deep down that is not possible, and we just sat back and played it really really loud on the speakers and I

like this way had been lifted. I felt this sense of stoners. At the end of the song? Does this daughter. Guitar Holic and the song slowly fades away into the distance. I'm a big fan of the fade out. It offers whoever's listening a moment to kind of pre than taken. What they've just heard Think I wanted it to end in a way that was quiet and gentle almost in a as you listen to the song you get transported and then you get gently drop back down where you started. Hopefully,.

Those feelings of darkness and depression will also left, and I guess That was my way of introducing a bit of hope into it, and did you end up sending the song to friends yeah. I sent this song to as a text or something like I wrote this for you. I wrote this about you I had been sending her demos since I was fourteen and so only felt that I share this one with as well I think the fact that now as well, she is doing so much better and is it's and has it's lust for life. I think it will most makes the song even more special to me because it's the pain,

I was changing and it does and and that you know you will get through these difficult things and now

here's black dog by Arlo Parks in its entirety,.

visit song, exploder dot net to learn more, you'll find links to buy or stream black dog, and you can watch he's video and again, if having thoughts about suicide. If you work got someone or you'd like emotional support, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available. Twenty four seven There are some links with more information on this area It's page on the song exploder website and in the show notes for this episode Exploiter is sponsored by Dave's killer, bread actually love Dave's killer bread, but they gave me a script to read so attention. Shoppers we now of taste and the bread I'll Dave's. were bred: that's right and organic bread it's no longer a sedative for your taste buds the bread is on a mission to make the most of the loaf to rid the world of Gmos. Heifer, high fructose corn. An artificial ingredients the seeds of good and all that they bake, killer, taste, killer, texture, always organic Dave's killer, bread, bread amplified

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