"Death of Love" by James Blake

Seems apropos that love dies in an office, among men in suits, where decisions about humans are made in a void outside of humanity. It's "Death of Love" by James Blake, live with the London Welsh Male Voice Choir. From his new album "Trying Times" out on March 13, 2026.

I don't know how we got here
I think we might be sleeping
I think we might be walking
To the death of love

It never seemed so hard
To say what you really mean
When everything you have seen is from above
It's the death of love (death of)

If we're on an island all the time
And it's yours and it is mine
It's the death of love

Is there no good faith?
Is our love misplaced?

I don't know how we got here
But everything feels different
People are losing interest
In the best of love

It never seemed so hard
To say what you really mean
When everything you have seen is from above
It's the death of love (death of)

If we're on an island all the time
And it's yours and it is mine
It's the death of love

Don't leave me behind
Over one bad hour
Sometimes we come back empty handed
Like bees from plastic flowers
We can't follow you where you're going
We can't follow you where you're going
We can't follow you where you're planning to go
To the death of love

I think we might be sleeping
I think we might be walking
To the...
To the death of love

https://jamesblakemusic.com/

"Like The End" by James Blake

As I posted the other day, Bertolt Brecht wrote, "In the dark times/Will there also be singing?/Yes, there will also be singing./About the dark times."

So James Blake has given us a mirror called "Like The End" which I was going to post on Inauguration Day but, well, hey, it's already here...and not just the incoming Empire of Darkness, but the whole she-bang, the floods, the fires, the viciousness, the vitriol, the apathy, the tornadoes, the hurricanes, the willful ignorance, the rabid zealotry, the scams, the greed, the famines, the targeted destruction, the sanctioned crimes, the abdication of justice, the fetishization of force, the mass shootings, the self-medicating numbing. He's just giving the facts.

As I separate my cardboard
Set my tax aside to fund another war
My spirit wakes up asking
If we're spending what we can't afford

Would you come home
If you didn't recognise it?
Home's tryna be America
They just don't advertise it

But doesn't it feel like the end?
Something's coming for us
And maybe we're not prepared
That this might only be day one
But doesn't it feel like the end?
Something's coming for us
I think we're not prepared
That this might only be day one

Thinking of ourselves, we are divided
But if you fly your flag, they'll weaponise it
Doesn't it feel like the end?
When we can't even agree on what was said

Would you come home
If you didn't recognise it?
Home's tryna be America
They just don't advertise it

But doesn't it feel like the end?
Something's coming for us
And maybe we're not prepared
That this might only be day one
But doesn't it feel like the end?

Something's coming for us
I think we're not prepared
That this might only be day one

https://www.jamesblakemusic.com/

"Don't Miss It" by James Blake

Apropos of my recent posting about how I use music (spoiler alert: like a drug), here is an intense, penetrating song called "Don't Miss It" by James Blake. As I said in the previous post about music, I like distortion since it seems to bring me closer to truth...

There are two narrative voices going on in this song. One is the voice of someone crushed under the heavy weight of loneliness, solitude, disconnection...depression. And the other is the voice of gentle encouragement, reason...a glimmer of hope...perhaps speaking from experience. Read along with the poignant, tender, devastating lyrics as they are typed out on an iPhone.

After having his music labeled "sad boy music" for some time now, Blake just wrote a wonderfully refreshing, frank, and powerful note to the public on Twitter:

“I'm overwhelmed by the lovely response to Don't Miss It today.

But I can't help but notice, as I do whenever I talk about my feelings in a song, that the words 'sad boy' are used to describe it.

I’ve always found that expression unhealthy and problematic when used to describe men just openly talking about their feelings. To label it at all, when we don’t ever question women discussion the things they are struggling with, contributes to the ever disastrous historical stigmatisation of men expressing themselves emotionally.

We are already in an epidemic of male depression and suicide. We don’t need any further proof that we have hurt men with our questioning of their need to be vulnerable and open.

It is only a good thing to talk about what is on your mind.

Please don’t allow people who fear their own feelings to ever subliminally shame you out of getting anything off your chest or identifying with music that helps you. There is no great victory in machismo and bravado in the end. The road to mental health and happiness, which I feel so passionately about, is paved with honesty.

Sorry for the ‘sad boy’ letter but I’ve seen enough friends drown in this, and almost drowned in it myself because I bottled everything up, afraid of being seen as weak or soft. I now see the great strength, and benefit for those around you in actually opening up. Best, James x.”

http://www.jamesblakemusic.com/

"Overgrown" by James Blake

Wow.
"Overgrown" by James Blake.

http://jamesblakemusic.com/

Currently listening to...

...these three songs by James Blake: "Lindisfarne," "The Wilhelm Scream," and "Limit To Your Love." I am swooning under the spell of his voice coupled with the gently insidious, slightly menacing music. "The Wilhelm Scream" is actually a remarkable song--I love how it seems like an off-kilter love song until the sound starts to lose focus and dissipate into fog toward the end. And I love how "Limit To Your Love" seems like a blues song but is actually a subtle sonic experiment in space and echoes.

The videos are absolutely spectacular as well. Each one is a work of art: imaginative, visually clear and penetrating, but psychologically rich, dense, and enigmatic, especially the curious "Lindisfarne."

http://jamesblakemusic.com/