What Happened to My Brother
Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle
2013 - 2020 felt like a major creative surge for Kozelek. The music business was still changing and had been for awhile. The first version of the iPod was released in October 2001 — an earthquake event — and the after shocks were still reverberating, still reeking havoc bringing the old system down.
After having global, high-profile success in the hey day — the 80’s and 90’s — so many artists had to pivot and reinvent themselves in the 2010’s. The iPod and music platforms were here to stay and they had to pivot and reinvent themselves.
To my eyes, it seemed to give Kozelek permission to just embrace the “art life” and fall into a very prolific period where he began writing about whatever the hell he wanted to. The songs and records kept coming. Writing songs for Spotify, he called it. But here’s the thing, many of these LPs and tracks from this new chapter found their way into my regular rotations. His stream of consciousness story songs were landing with me — moving me, making me think and react; the rich details, the sprawling narratives — with equal doses of the mundane and the disturbing.
This track is from his underrated collaboration with Jimmy LaVelle called PERILS FROM THE SEA. Alas, it was not the huge success that The Postal Service was. Still, it’s terrific and it’s a record I go back to a lot. This song feels like a distant cousin to Damien Jurado’s MEDICATION or Bruce Springsteen’s HIGHWAY PATROLMAN. What do we do with our brothers — our best friends — the ones who we once laughed and drank with. Maybe we had a falling out with them. Maybe we haven't spoken to them in years. Makes me think of David Lynch’s The Straight Story — estranged brothers.
Or even worse? Maybe it’s a buddy we loved who ended up on a dark road to ruin. I’ve lost good friends and family members to depression, suicide, drugs and alcohol. For some, I was there when it began. I was at their graduations and weddings. I was there as the disease escalated and festered. And I saw it take them down.
Love this song and it makes me think about all of this. Kozelek wonders about someone he knew, admired and loved — someone who used to dazzle us
But he got on that long bus ride. Down a dark road to ruin. 💔
It’s worth reading the comments below the video on YouTube. It’s a track that has moved a lot of people to write about the friends and brothers they’ve lost.
What happened to my brother
The life in his eyes?
Did something shake his brain
On that long bus ride?
What happened to my brother?
Swear he had my mother's face
What I'd give to find him
Hold him in a long embrace
What happened to his body?
Why's he look so white and empty?
When he shows up at my door
Just don't know him
Used to sit and talk for days
Now he lays there in a haze
'Til some tiny little nothin'
Triggers psychotic eruption
What happens when he's sleepin'?
Why's he wake up cryin' and screamin'?
Walkin' into walls and runnin'
Like hungry animals are comin'
To gnaw his bones, lap up his blood
From a ditch bank in the mud
Leave his scarecrow in the sticks
For the black birds
And the blue jays to pick
For the nature to encroach
For the wanderers to approach
For the snow and autumn leaves
To be buried underneath
For the rivers to rise
Wash him out into the tides
What happened to my brother?
He used to have his pick of lovers
A whole array of pretty ones
My brother was a silver Sun
A heavyweight, a head bull
A frontman and waterfall
A stoic prince, not the second
But the first violin
So for, so for, so forget the viola
So for, so for, so forget cello
So for, so for, so forget the violin
He's up, he's up, he's up in his room
Gone solo
He used to dazzle us
Leave a trail of magic dust
At the end of every joke
We would laugh so hard, we'd choke
He could turn over a stone
Find an endless well of poems
Used to bring the sweetest gifts
We went to him to be uplifted
Inspiration, friendship
We needed love, we needed tips
Oh, how I miss, how I miss
My brother, I miss
You ask me what's he do?
He swallows reds, he swallows blues
Stares off in the night sky
You ask me what's he do?
So for, so for, so forget the viola
So for, so for, so forget the cello
So for, so for, so forget the violin
He's up, he's up, he's up there
Layin' low
