love is a dying, by Bailey Miller

love is a dying

by Bailey Miller

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1.	glacier 07:04	lyrics	buy track
oh what do I do with my love? it’s true, I swear it is I wouldn’t be telling you if it weren’t cuz that would hurt you and I both of us in different spaces and times I love to see you standing there I love to see you winding your way through me like you know me but I don’t know how much more I can take love is a black lake reflecting our mistakes rippling our heartache silence in its wake and I feel lonely thinking of you solely thinking you’re the only crying to the holy we decided we’re not the ones well look at me now but when we spoke it it didn’t change a thing we ended before we could start you’re a glacier carving grooves in my heart
2.	needs 01:56	lyrics	buy track
what do I do with the part of me that needs that doesn’t trust in the growing of a seed that waters the vine with a desperate plea and chokes the flower as a weed what do I do with the part of me that bleeds for something balanced, something free but beckons her love with a billowing greed as an ever hungry mouth to feed what do I do with the part of me that leads from transactional affections and false guarantees that starves for space, but seeks after speed why is it her that supersedes
3.	cul-de-sac 02:51 video	lyrics	buy track
every night you turn out the light lucid loneliness eats my skin alive you’re so close I should be too but nothing’s getting through to you a crushed orb sits inside my chest from this longing unexpressed I used to want you to see the way I would feel on nights like these but I’m out of hope for being seen how do you not see me car pulls up to the cul de sac and then it fades to black
4.	ink 02:14	lyrics	buy track
you said it felt like ink was covering your body it’s my fault you see to me it’s like this emptiness colors everything no part of me left undarkened by a hovering smoldering ink and I dripped it onto you my ceaseless wanting, silly me. or was it yours? a disease of neglect, a way unseen, a lie, or intentional uncertainty? nonetheless, seems to have changed my breathing. who am i? when i can’t see through our ink?
5.	goldfinch 03:45	lyrics	buy track
maybe i’ve fallen on hard times maybe i’m hoping you’re still mine i know these forks cannot be defined our love felt like the tender kind goldfinch on a growing pine i’m bonded to you beyond a rhyme cuz you were the shelter and i the vine souls can’t help but intertwine could it be a glowing sign? does love take cues from the divine? not a fiery festering, but a sweet sublime it was you i hoped i’d find the virus ain’t over, it’s still in its prime and i worry bout you and your restless mind your immunosuppressant, your enzyme i hope you’re well, i hope you’re fine take me back to the night on the coastline when you told me you loved me at the tourist dine when the stars felt like they had aligned when we had plans, when we had time a year has passed, a year has fled I thought i’d put the past to bed now my nerves are fraying, my heart is lead feelings i doused to get ahead you were the man i would’ve wed looking back on all the skin i shed i’ll be your friend, the words we said now behind us is a tattered thread i crossed myself, i toiled and plead it still left hell and swelling dread what happens when your dreams are dead? do they resurrect elsewhere instead? I wonder what spring means in red not painting the doors of your new toolshed daffodils must be grown in your flowerbed while the birds are singin overhead
6.	admirer 07:17	lyrics	buy track
sittin in my pajamas had to call my mama cuz I thought I ordered a decaf and now I’m seein auras ate some naan in the shower and I panicked for ten hours and I wondered about you and about how I’m a downer thought I was becoming turns out maybe I’ve been running from the ghosts of your love and your love when push comes to shove I am alone upon my throne I am alone and I want to be known why is there nothing to say? you wouldn’t get it anyway why is there nothing to say? you wouldn’t get it anyway why did you go away? oooh, oooh wrote you a song about a goldfinch now I feel like a bitch glad you ignored my pitch I didn’t mean to switch which is which I don’t have neither / nor no one to care for no one to adore just memories from before and my symbolic folklore and these closed doors I’m sinking through the floor loves I can’t ignore thought it was you I swore it’s not you anymore why did you go away? I wouldn’t get it anyway why did you go away? I wouldn’t get it anyway went to your bonfire we admired your easter attire lit by ruby and sapphire while the cat conspired with you I’m inspired yet I still get that lonely ire over the unrequited prior and the beauty that transpired tried to be a pacifier my love turned into a pyre being reignited in your fire what’s the meaning of desire when it doesn’t expire? what does it require? is it just a misfire? to take us lower or higher? although I’ve tried to rewire I’m still your not so secret admirer will love bloom or decay we couldn’t know it anyway will love bloom or decay we couldn’t know it anyway holy water on the ground exiled and bound drawn somehow then and now
7.	hunger 02:42	lyrics	buy track
can someone become so fed up with hunger that they wind up at the beginning crucified with wonder? as their life flashes before them as they become younger can they escape the self-made spell they’re under? as they give back the riches they’ve taken by plunder can they forgive the lighting? forgive the thunder?
8.	mirror 08:02	lyrics	buy track
darling, what have you done? you wagered all your riches on the sun seems like every time it ends before the start couldn’t have been anything there to protect your tender heart tender heart, tender heart, they see it from afar they use it as a guiding evening star while keeping theirs safe in tightly locked jar as you freely give, all the love you are darlin, you messed it up this time and you know I said, oh keep yourself in line but you tried to keep it, you fell right through you’ve got you’re pain too, oh it’s nothing to do it’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, i don’t even know you there was nothing there for me to attach to it doesn’t matter what they put me through I still come crawling back, ready to renew darlin, why are you carried by fear? while in my dreams I weave fingers through your hair it really just takes crumbs to make you fall what consolation is it, that at least you gave your all? gave your all, gave your all, learned not to play small and how to breathe your joy against their wall it’s not your fault they give and then withdraw and don’t know how to heed a caring call darlin, you can’t cope the way they cope all these times, you’ve been bold enough to hope but hope leads you right through to the abyss people piling pain onto each person they kiss another’s kiss, another’s kiss, vapid vacant bliss do you want love or to reminisce? at some point you just have to witness this instead of picking at scabs of all past loves amiss darling, what have you done? you thought another runner was the one found another place where love can’t be born you brought your rose, and fell over on the thorn the thorn, the thorn, what could I blame you for? I’m just as scared behind my open door when I see you, I see through a mirror just another heart hurting from before
9.	I am trying 01:40	lyrics	buy track
I am trying
10.	still 04:51	lyrics	buy track
baby wake up, brand new morning you get coffee, I get tea hope you had some trippy dreams and got a pleasant night of sleep what’s the day for, go to the store? or be silent with the trees? let’s close the door on our before eulogize our analyses I have fallen deep in love with you against my will and sorrow still I find you in the morning rising o’er the silent hill we could wind forever in this endless spiral of history and never quite fully entice the encounter of you and me I know it was wise to take our time to see each other clearly but until I stop acting shy say it boldly, I won’t feel free that I have fallen deep in love with you against my will and sorrow still I find you in the morning rising o’er the silent hill death has had its way with me I’ve walked the desert of memory and found a thousand ways of hiding dimming down the flame in me I thought my heart would be a burden fill the atmosphere with misery but when it busted open illuminated all I see poured its light in all my cracks and all my aching injuries and taught me how to love the flame and hold it simply, finally so I’ll drop my weapons, let love hold me give my body to the mystery and feel the waves of mercy how the flame can set me free if I let it be if I let it be
11.	love is a dying 04:24	lyrics	buy track
soften your weight onto me I know you’re stone, but I can see that you crave beauty just like me, just like anybody soften your weight onto me I know it hurts, the certainty I know it hurts, the certainty but if you kiss me like you mean it meet me on the mountain maybe we can see it maybe we can be it cuz it feels like the last day we’ll get to see it will you come and see it? soften your weight onto me how shall we paint reality find me, raged and free in the graveyard of my fantasy even if we could agree we’ll unleash a pain so mad and arcane so hopelessly stained you’ll be my lover and bane there will be no one to blame for the house set aflame cuz we no longer believe in hope so naïve what was joy now we grieve no meaning left to unweave we’ll say I love you as we leave mumbled between dry heaves cuz love is a dying love is a dying

about

While producer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Bailey Miller’s debut full-length, Still Water, found great depth in the juxtaposition and interweaving of tactile instruments with otherworldly sounds, Miller’s
follow-up love is a dying follows a considerably more direct path to intention and meaning.

Not unlike Richard Youngs, Miller explores minimalist, meditative songwriting to great effect and in a way that seems to proceed as economically as possible from each song’s emotional germination. One has the sense that the work is necessary, that these songs serve fundamentally to process the realities of life and loss, that in the playing, Miller finds comfort and meaning.

Many of the songs on love is a dying are in fact first takes, recorded spontaneously in the very earliest stages of development. The record itself is therefore both seed and blossom. Miller says that these songs
“resisted being re-recorded” and that “once a song seemed to work its magic and help me to process an event or an emotion, I let that song be done.”

From one song to the next, Miller trades instruments. On “cul-de-sac,” she turns careful phrases over and over on an electric baritone guitar (which makes multiple appearances throughout the record). “You’re so
close / and I should be too / but nothing’s getting through to you.” There is a sense of emotional frustration but also an opening through acceptance: “But I’m out of hope / for being seen. / How do you
not see me? / The car pulls up to the cul-de-sac / and then it fades to black / then it fades to black.”

Not only are most of the songs on love is a dying first takes, but the record is sequenced in the order that the songs were written. It is a story emerging. The title, Miller says, is meant to express a powerful
dichotomy. Love is a kind of dying whether that love is a successful, loving relationship or if it means heartbreak and grief. In the former case, one experiences a dying of oneself and expectations of another,
while the latter brings painful loss.

As on her previous work, the focus here is Miller’s voice, spare and clear. It is a voice that disarms and communicates intensity largely through a power withheld, implied. Fans of Tiny Vipers and Cross
Record and Sybille Baer will find this quality familiar and easy to love, while all of Miller’s work and processes are shot through with a spiritual charge reminiscent of David Åhlen. Miller counts philosopher
Simone Weil among her most crucial influences and discerning listeners will certainly understand that Miller’s preoccupations with mortality and transfiguration are complex, even theological.

On “goldfinch,” Miller accompanies her crystal clear singing with only a gentle, looped recording of frogs singing and the effect is one of profound timelessness like Shirley Collins’ Crowlink or Elephant
Micah’s Genericana. And here “timelinessnes”s means not only having qualities from some time now past, but from any distant human future to come, including perhaps the very moment when one is hearing
this music for the first time. Miller’s depth and directness, her ability and willingness to experiment with processes sees to it that her musings will feel shimmeringly potent and intimate wherever and whenever there is a mind to wonder.

credits

released February 10, 2023

Written, performed and produced by Bailey Miller. Mastered by Sean McCann. Layout and art by Bailey Miller.

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Bailey Miller Cincinnati, Ohio

swelling strings, synthesized stirrings, subterranean spirals, and screeching stillness

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