The making of things we lost in the fire by low - featuring mimi parker and alan sparhawk

Intro:

Dan Nordheim: You’re listening to Life of the Record. Classic albums, told by the people who made them. My name is Dan Nordheim.

Low formed in Duluth, Minnesota in 1993 by Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker and John Nichols. They initially signed with Vernon Yard and released their debut album, I Could Live in Hope, in 1994. John Nichols left the band and Zak Sally joined as they released Long Division and The Curtain Hits the Cast prior to leaving Vernon Yard. After signing with Kranky, they released Songs for a Dead Pilot, Secret Name and Christmas before reconnecting with Steve Albini to record the songs that became 2001’s Things We Lost in the Fire. 

In this episode, for the 20th anniversary, Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk look back on how Things We Lost in the Fire came together. This is the making of Things We Lost in the Fire. 

Mimi Parker: My name is Mimi Parker and I’m in Low and I’m here today to reminisce about our record from, I think it was 2001, called Things We Lost in the Fire.

Alan Sparhawk: Me too. I’m Alan Sparhawk and I’m also in Low. 

Mimi Parker: I think at every point of any, every and any record we’ve ever done, there’s confusion. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah at some point. 

Mimi Parker: Where we’re like, “What are we doing? Is this any good? Is this just crap? Is this…?

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah. “Oh no, are these songs any good? Or “are we making a big mistake by chasing this rule or this maxim or something?” I mean these were some really expansive songs, when I look back, I guess when I remember writing them, I mean I remember this was just, I don’t know if naive is the right word, but I feel like the possibilities in my mind were expanding just faster than I could keep up with it. So there’s some really pure songs on here that came from sort of that perfect balance of being naive but also just about fully grasping what’s possible. 

Mimi Parker: As soon as I Could Live in Hope was out, we were like, “OK the only way anybody’s gonna hear this or hear about it is if we tour.” And that’s honestly, that’s how it was and that’s the only way you could...So we toured a lot. 

Alan Sparhawk: That’s how it was back then (laughs). It was before the internet.

Mimi Parker: We were hitting places a couple times a year. 

Alan Sparhawk: A couple times a year. Doing more than a hundred shows a year. 

Mimi Parker: Which is now kind of unheard of. We’d go to Texas and Florida in the winter and maybe again in...I mean it was kind of crazy how often we hit some of these places. 

Alan Sparhawk: But it was different times, you kind of could do that. People were kind of a lot more up for just like, “Eh I’ll just go down and see what bands are playing.” You could actually gain fans by doing that because people, the culture was still like, “Eh I’m going to go out. My buddy’s band is playing, I guess there’s some bands from out of town, we’ll go check them out.” You know, it was cheap.

Mimi Parker: Right, cheap shows, cheap tickets. 

Alan Sparhawk: (laughs) Because nobody expected much. If you got a couple hundred bucks, you’re doing good. Get to the next town, sleep on someone’s floor and keep it rolling. It was great and it was a great time to develop and figure out what you’re doing and it was great for writing songs and trying them out on the road for a while before we’d go in to record. Which was always a concern back then just budget-wise, you know, it cost a lot of money to go to a studio and work with someone who’s good. But yeah then, somewhere in that process, we also met Albini.

Mimi Parker: Right.

Alan Sparhawk: At shows, he was at a show and I remember Zak (laughs) just coming backstage before we played or something.

Mimi Parker: And just being starstruck. 

Alan Sparhawk: He thought he was losing his mind, “Steve Albini’s here, I don’t know why he’s here but he’s seeing some friend. Steve Albini’s here! Holy crap!” (laughs). And we played and Steve came up and said hi and said he really liked what we were doing. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah shockingly he liked what we were doing (laughs). 

Alan Sparhawk: So yeah we had met Albini sort of, and worked with him a little bit as we were leaving Vernon Yard. So yeah and he became a great ally and friend and mentor. And he’s efficient and quick and we kind of had already been used to the aesthetic of you know, really have your stuff ready and really figure out your songs and be ready and go in and work hard and knock stuff out in sometimes just a few days and maybe have a day or two to mix. 

Mimi Parker: You know, we’d been touring like crazy so we’d played all these songs on tour. Over and over. So we were pretty tight. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah we had most of this so we were really prepared. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah we were pretty tight with how we were gonna play them. 

Alan Sparhawk: We’d been listening to a lot of classic sort of history of pop (laughs) and I keep coming back to the Beach Boys. I remember this record being sort of a culmination of the time when we’d been listening to a lot of that and listening to The Beatles. Just kind of educating ourselves about the possibility of sort of the original innovators in the studio. We’d been listening to (laughs) Pet Sounds and all that stuff in the van and sort of, I don’t know. Actually kind of thinking about it now, it’s kind of nostalgic. I think we were really lucky to be given the opportunity and given the time to develop through sort of the subtle process of learning what recording is about. You know we had several records to learn what the possibilities were and yeah I think by the time we came to Things We Lost in the Fire was sort of this peak of that. 

Once we’d write a song and sort of figure out guitar, bass, drums arrangement, the next question was always like, “OK what could we do to enhance this?” We’d been doing that for a while, you know, “Would a keyboard sound cool on this? Oh strings or something like that?” It was just in the band conversation, you know, whether it was in the van, listening to records and pointing out stuff and talking about this and that like, “Oh man, this string part on this song is so cool.” It was just on our mind. This one actually, remember Tom? We have a friend, Tom Herbers, who’s our live sou nd engineer and we have recorded with him multiple times over the years and he kind of volunteered to help us enhance the sessions a little bit if we wanted to work on things and he suggested being able to track at his studio. 

Mimi Parker: We tracked some with him yeah. 

Alan Sparhwawk: And I remember at the time, Albini wasn’t necessarily like, “Oh I don’t like that.” But I remember kind of in hindsight being like, “welll...” I know he was a little nervous about it. And I know from just hearing stories since then that he really (laughs) doesn’t like to do this. But we went and we tracked some with Steve at his studio and it was sort of incomplete and then we went to Minneapolis at the studio that Tom Herbers had. And we tracked some stuff there, we added some instruments, did some keyboards, did some things. 

Mimi Parker: Some vocals even I think.

Alan Sparhawk: Vocals, kind of some of the more fiddly like, “OK let’s try this. I know it might not work but it might take me a while to find the right keyboard setting for this thing I hear.” And we’re still analog recording, you’re not really able to tweak and manipulate things afterwards as much. And again, by then we were expanding our vision of what’s possible in the studio so we were trying to see, “What would happen if we had a little extra time?” Because we could go work with Tom cheaper and it was closer to home and all that stuff. When we went back to Steve then we moved into the A room and had our friends play some strings and then I think we mixed it. This friend of ours, Ida Pearle and her friend Zach. We had played with them, they were in the band Ida. 

Mimi Parker: And then Tresa, she’s Zak’s friend. 

Alan Sparhawk: Oh and then Tresa, yeah she was close to Chicago. I think she actually played on the Nirvana record. She was the cello player on the Nirvana record so it was someone that Steve knew as well. Well they’re good players and people we had played with already and we had figured out what we wanted them to do and it was just a matter of telling them (laughs). It went pretty quick. Steve’s good with, he was excited cause…

Mimi Parker: He’s a master of catching the natural sound.

Alan Sparhawk: You know the challenge of getting a good string session is fun for someone who loves recording. He’s one of the greatest engineers, sound engineers ever and is fully equipped for that. I remember actually feeling like there was a little bit of excitement because we were bringing him weird things like, “Hey, what if we did this?” The reputation I think that was out there was like, “Oh no don’t try anything wacky with Steve. Everything’s gotta be real and it’s gotta be punk.” “Well no actually.” He was kind of excited about recording different things and excited about trying different things. 

Mimi Parker: He was really accommodating, excited yeah. 

Alan Sparhawk: Because it was in the spirit of, “Let’s make a great sounding record.”

“Sunflower”

Alan Sparhawk: For that break, there was someone doing a little click. Yeah that’s always a trick in the studio, that’s always the hardest thing is to get something to line up rhythmically so it sounds natural.

Mimi Parker: Especially with strings too, they’re so…

Alan Sparhawk: Intonation and sort of the movement where...

Mimi Parker: The start and the finish of the note are just real...

Alan Sparhawk: When the note starts and when it ends is such…

Mimi Parker: It’s loose.

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah it can be very loose and it can be very technically challenging. I mean, Ida and Zach were really good.

Mimi Parker: Yeah they did a good job. 

Alan Sparhawk: So I think it actually went really smoothly. But I remember being like, “OK, I’m not sure how to do this but I think if you play this note and this note and this note (laughs), I think it’ll work. I remember it was literally that (laughs). We knew we kind of didn’t know what we were doing but I don’t know, it’s just notes. You play a note and then you have them play another note.

Mimi Parker: (laughs) One note at a time.

Alan Sparhawk: (laughs) If it’s wrong, you’ll know because you’ll be able to hear it. Yeah at that point, you have it in your head and you kind of just dictate it with whatever instrument you’re familiar with. Yeah that’s one thing you learn is in string players, you know, they say this all the time, there’s two different kinds of string players, there’s people who are technical and you put a piece of music in front of them, they can play it perfectly. But then if you ask them, “alright well we’re gonna do this country song, it’s in A flat. Let’s hit it.” They’re not going to be able to hear it and know and have the confidence to kind of jump in and make it sound effortless. Whereas there are some players who get it. Luckily Ida and Zach were those kinds of players. 

Well the first song, “Sunflower,” it’s sort of raw right at first (laughs) cause it’s like, “When they found your body,” it’s not necessarily the first thing you think of. 

Mimi Parker: It’s quite an image. 

Alan Sparhawk: When you’re thinking of eternal love.

Mimi Parker: (laughs) Yeah it’s like reading the last couple pages of the novel first. 

Alan Sparhawk: Everytime I sing it, I’m sort of picturing it from the side of someone who is either dead or is sort of reflecting on someone who has passed and of course it’s a relationship. How someone would speak who is either a ghost or who is in love with someone who is now gone, but you’re still one. In many ways, it’s maybe a reflection of a belief in eternal life or the belief that love is eternal and if we do live forever, then are we one and living eternally with the people who we’ve committed our love to? It’s a way of doing a love song without it being sappy or without it being disingenuous maybe, I don’t know. 

Mimi Parker: This has probably been the most requested song.

Alan Sparhawk: People ask for this one a lot yeah. 

Mimi Parker: Still to this day, yeah people ask to hear this one. 

Alan Sparhawk: We had been on a trajectory for a few records of kind of slowly accustomizing ourselves more to the studio and sort of on a very cautious level, reaching out to other possibilities, whether it’s other instruments or recording technique. We had done a few records by then and we’d worked with several different engineers and producers. That was really key to helping us along. 

Mimi Parker: And so we had met Joel from Kranky. 

Alan Sparhawk: Joel and Bruce from Chicago. 

Mimi Parker: And they had basically invited us like, “Hey, whenever you guys want a new situation, we’re here for you.” And so it was pretty natural and pretty welcome at that point. We didn’t know if we fit on Kranky. You know, the Kranky aesthetic was a little different from what we’d been doing. 

Alan Sparhawk: We thought, “Are you guys sure?” 

Mimi Parker: Are you sure? (laughs)

Alan Sparhawk: Because we’re kind of this real minimal indie, you know we’re still playing pop songs and stuff (laughs).

Mimi Parker: Real minimal and not really...Yeah kind of poppy and not so experimental at this point. 

Alan Sparhawk: But I remember having a little bit of a feeling like, “Wow, we’re on Kranky, we really could kind of do whatever we want. We really could stretch out.” Of course, we had done a few records and like I said, we’d been learning. As you learn to record, your mind kind of explodes with like, “Wow, what would happen if we just did a song where the drum was just doing this thing.”

Mimi Parker: Well so we did Songs for a Dead Pilot. And so we did an experiment where we recorded that. 

Alan Sparhawk: Songs for a Dead Pilot was the first thing we did on Kranky. That was where like, “Hey we can kind of learn…” Yeah we were recording ourselves and we kind of didn’t know what we were doing but we were kind of like, “Well, I think that’s ok. As long as we’re experimenting and trying to come up with something interesting, they’ll probably be happy with it.” 

Mimi Parker: And I remember putting microphones in the dryer. Banging on things, we thought, “Hey!” (laughs)

Alan Sparhawk: Banging on things, distorting things. “Oh I bet nobody’s thought of this! Look out Brian Eno!” (laughs)

“Whitetail”

Alan Sparhawk: “Whitetail,” I remember writing that. It’s sort of this weird circle on the guitar. It’s a circle of five measures, which is odd. Not only literally odd but most of the time music’s in fours and eights and twos. Daniel Huffman from this band, these friends of ours, this band, Comet, from Texas, happened to be up, hanging out (laugs), visiting us, so we had him play some noise on that because he’s kind of more of a free noise, psychedelic, Texas guitar guy. So that was cool. We tracked a lot of that at Tom’s and then brought it to Steve. 

Mimi Parker: I just picture, that song is slowly, just anticipation. 

Alan Sparhawk: It’s interesting, it’s a little bit sonically, the texture is actually kind of a precursor to a lot of what we’re doing now. You know, it’s removed from the drum kit, there’s no backbeat to it. There’s no sort of notey bass line necessarily even though the bass is there. It’s sort of just this throbbing texture that’s coming at you, which could probably describe a lot of what we’ve been doing the last few years. 

The first verse in that, I always think of Zak. “Stay up all night, waste time, waste light. Closer closer ever closer,” cause Zak is an illustrator, comic, graphic novels and comics artist. Those lines to me inspire sort of the image of just that. He would stay up all night and work on stuff, he’s a really meticulous meticulous meticulous artist and he would take a lot of time with his stuff, and he would pour over it and edit it (laughs) a lot. To me, it’s this claustrophobic kind of late night fuzzy feeling of being driven to work on this thing that you love but it’s also sort of a trudge through. And in some ways to me, it’s sort of the reflection of the feeling of writing too. At least my pattern, for years is just, you know, you’re up late at night, it’s kind of the only time of the day when everybody’s in bed and everything’s kind of quiet and you can sit and spend that time hunched over the guitar, mumbling and trying to figure out ideas. And  most of the time you don’t and then the image of the whitetail, it’s (laughs) something that’s going that way but all you see is that it’s leaving. You’re never gonna catch it. 

Some of this stuff is already built in, you know the fact that Mim doesn’t play like a normal kick drum, hi-hat, snare, kind of beats, really automatically helps things (laughs) put in a different world. And it makes it easier for no matter what we do, “Well it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve heard before.” And it’s mostly because Mim’s different approach to drums, but then that forces us to think differently as well. Yeah I don’t know, just trying to avoid cliches. We try not to play with them or lean on them too much. Some bands really use the touchstones and the anchors of the past to realign and tell their story with the vocabulary that’s already been established and been familiar. There’s an art to that but I guess we’ve always been insistent that there are other ways of doing it and that if we looked at it, we could find our own (laughs). 

“Dinosaur Act”

Alan Sparhawk: “Dinosaur Act” I remember when I wrote it, thinking, “Well this is cool, it’s kind of loud.” I wasn’t unfamiliar with playing loud and I do love loud stuff but I remember writing it, this big riff (sings guitar riff), thinking, “Oh man, that’s too rock, I don’t know if Mim and Zack are going to go for it.” 

Mimi Parker: It scared us (laughs).

Alan Sparhawk: But we found a way to do it that was thick and heavy without completely surrendering to the thing that in my head that it wanted to do (laughs). That was a good example of us sort of being like, “Well that’s ok, we can go there I guess, right? Let’s see what happens if we go there. Let’s see what happens.” In hindsight, we were probably a little cautious. We probably could have rang it out a little harder and maybe would have, I don’t want to say rocked better but…”

Mimi Parker: We could have rocked harder. But I think we were maybe a little resistant to it. 

Alan Sparhawk: Sort of cautious like “Are we doing this?” So it always feels like this weird, “Are we doing this or not?” I think even live it was always really hard to do because just in the back of your mind, the song really wanted to go there but then we were like, “no, that’s not what we’re about.” 

Mimi Parker: We were holding it back. Probably me, it was probably mostly me. 

Alan Sparhawk: It took us a while to find the right way to let loose. I think we knew, with that song, like the things we want to do, it just felt like it would be a little too cliche to let it go. Yeah it took us a while to find like, “How can we be loud without being like, there’s cliche we’ve heard, I thought we were about trying to avoid that.” I think it actually took a couple times we played it (laughs), before you really bit actually.

Mimi Parker: I wouldn’t be surprised one bit. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah “Dinosaur Act,” images from childhood. I remember this song when I wrote it, the phrase “dinosaur act” came out first. You know, it just kind of falls out of your head and I remember thinking, “Dinosaur act, what does that mean? That doesn’t mean anything.” I remember thinking like, “Well the melody and phrasing’s cool, I’ll just roll with it and write some verses and stuff and maybe I’ll come back and change the words. Maybe by the time I write the verses, I’ll know what the chorus should be.” But I don’t know, nothing beat it (laughs), nothing beat it out so by the time I sung it a few times like, “Well dinosaur act, it’s as good of thing to sing as anything.” I remember there was sort of a joke for a long time, people kind of misinterpreting it, “the dinosaur egg song.” 

Mimi Parker: Yeah, right (laughs). 

Alan Sparhawk: “Dinosaur egg, dinosaur hat, dinosaur ahhhhh.” So there were a lot of misinterpretations, it was pretty funny. 

Bob (Weston) was one of the engineers at the studio there and we’d see him pop in and out and he’s a good friend and (laughs) I think Steve actually mentioned that, “Oh you know, Bob plays trumpet.” “Oh really ok let’s get…” Yeah we had him come in and do that part and it was cool. Very quick. 

Yeah it’s a weird song, I remember sometimes playing it and it feeling really good but most of the time playing it and just being like, “What are we doing? (laughs) I’m trying to find the right spot for this and I can’t.” Some songs are like that. 

“Medicine Magazines” 

Alan Sparhawk: Let’s see, “Medicine Magazines” was, I remember writing it, I have images in my mind of writing that as well but it took a little while. I have sort of certain writing styles that I fall into a lot and this is one of them, sort of a cycle of, sort of the weird twist end at the end of a cycle. It’s like three chords and a cycle but then a little twist at the end and then, “Ok start again.” Three chords and a cycle or four chords and a cycle and then a weird twist at the end, four chords and a cycle. Anyway that one, all I remember is just working so hard and just ringing my brain out so hard trying to write these songs. A friend of ours made a video actually just recently for that song and I think I actually for the first time was able to really connect with the song and actually feel the emotion of it because it’s just maybe the imagery of it or something. Suddenly it hit me as a lot more nostalgic and resonant than I think it ever had been. The language in it is sort of talking to a friend or maybe talking to someone who’s, you’re trying to help or console or try to give advice (laughs). Or maybe talking to myself even. A lot of times that’s what’s going on. Speaking to someone but really it’s a reflection of myself, talking to myself. Yeah most of the songs on the record, I’m talking more to Mim but not this one, this is speaking to a troubled friend. There’s pressure always to solve it for people or to give them answers but that’s ok, the most important thing is just to engage. 

Yeah there’s a really cool, on “Medicine Magazines,” that little electric piano break is Zak. I literally can see in my mind the image of him (laughs) in the big room in B, playing this keyboard that Steve had wheeled out. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah I kind of remember that too.

“Laser Beam” 

Alan Sparhawk: “Laser Beam” was fairly new when we brought it in. Yeah Zak and I had figured out the music on it and kind of thought, “Well this is just really cool, super minimal.” Without necessarily being slow, we were still trying to get that feeling of the minimal.

Mimi Parker: Yeah it was very minimal. 

Alan Sparhawk: That anchor of ours (laughs), slow and minimal. It was nice to have a song that really was that stripped. People love, people request this one a lot. 

Mimi Parker: The lyrics came together really fast with this song. It was one of those you played it, I sat down and that’s basically what came out. 

Alan Sparhawk: I just played it and you wrote the lyrics. 

Mimi Parker: I don’t remember hashing over it at all. And basically it’s, I have no idea what the laser beam is referring to, but the rest of the song is autobiographical for me. It has to do with, I remember when I was a kid, going to town to get my dad, who was intoxicated at the bar. Which happened more than I’d like to admit. And we were sitting in the car waiting for him, and he came out holding a drink and the cop was there and my dad got in the car and the cop sprayed mace on him. And it was so crazy and I don’t remember my eyes burning or anything, I just remember that. I mean that was a very striking memory that I have. And that song is basically based on that experience. 

I was quite young when that, yeah when that happened. But yeah really intense and for some reason, it just kind of flowed out of me that day (laughs). 

“July”

Alan Sparhawk: “July” was an interesting song to write. Yeah it’s really kind of epic, I don’t really write a lot of songs that have (laughs) sections like that, movements. It’s kind of got a lot of pop melody and movement in it. A little bit more complex chord movement than we usually do. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah I mean Mark D (Mark Degli Antoni) played on that. I remember he brought a lot. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah he brought a lot of sophistication to it. Yeah we kind of built it at Steve’s and then we went to Tom’s. Mark Degli Antoni was the sampler slash keyboard player for Soul Coughing, who we had toured with and were good friends with those guys. He came out, we invited him out to do some keyboards on a few songs and he did a great job and really brought, it was more than just keyboard. I mean this is a guy who’s interested in sound and how stuff hits, much more so than a typical keyboard person. So yeah it was really great, he came and played some Mellotron and Chamberlin. Tom had a Chamberlin, which is like a Mellotron, it’s the same concept where you’re triggering tape, actual tape samples of other instruments. So yeah, all that orchestral or that weird, like a horn-sounding thing at the end, that’s all Chamberlin, Mark was playing keyboard on. There’s a lot sonically, there’s a lot like chords and the changes and stuff going on there that I don’t know enough about theory to understand what’s going on. There’s some weird chromatic chord movement on that song that I don’t understand, but it sounds ok so we went with it (laughs).

It’s a little bit of a relationship but also like our team, you know, like our group. Yeah it’s about sort of, it’s underdog cheerleading is what it is. 

Mimi Parker: (sings) “It’s late, we missed the date.” 

Alan Sparhawk: It’s saying, “Hey, we get left out, we get looked over, they pass us over but that’s ok. We’ll hide in our little cover until they’ve passed. Maybe we’ll have to wait, even longer.” And then at the end, it just kind of collides. 

Mimi Parker: Even to this day, I feel like when we bring that song out, which is not very often. But we’ll play it for something, you know, like we were doing our Friday shows. I feel like, “oh yeah, what a little treat” (laughs). I like playing that song, I like singing it. I think there are just some really sweet moments. And the ending, the way the ending rides out. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah it rides out. It builds and the tension and release on it are actually pretty successful, it’s weird. It’s fun to ride out on something pretty for a couple moments (laughs). Not too long. 

Mimi Parker: Heavens no. Not too long (laughs).

“Embrace”

Mimi Parker: Well I mean specifically, there are two songs on here that I sing that pertain directly to that. 

Alan Sparhawk: Childbirth. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah “Embrace” is basically about the experience of actually physically having a child. And then “In Metal” is you know, after she’s here and what you’re thinking and all the emotions that come with knowing that you have this life, this new precious, fragile life. And you’re in charge of keeping this (laughs) child alive and teaching her. So specifically yeah. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah it’s direct physical contact with a new awareness of the cycle of life. This life coming in, you sense the mantle of what is important (laughs), sort of shift. As you see that, “well now this is the most important.” And with that inevitably comes death. Yeah it’s interesting, I feel like a lot of them are love songs but sort of from the voice of having gone through something together. Not so much in love. It’s kind of the next thing. Coming through to this realization. 

Mimi Parker: Sure once you start having children, they become the focus. Obviously the marriage and the relationship is still important but it’s a new dimension and maybe a new direction. 

Alan Sparhawk: But it adds, it’s a new dimension and it shifts its importance. 

Mimi Parker: So “Embrace,” I’m trying to think how. 

Alan Sparhawk: I think I came to you with some chords on the baritone. Just kind of like, “oh I’ve got these chords, here what do you think?” And you…

Mimi Parker: Well I actually had had part of that song that I had written previously that I had been trying to find a place for. Especially that, (sings) “I fell down the stairs,” I’d had that. Remember? 

Alan Sparhawk: Right. It was just a matter of figuring out a verse. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah it was a matter of figuring out a verse. 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah I remember that, you told me like, “the chorus needs to go like this.” And I remember like, “Oh is it this chord?” And you’re like, “no no no.” (laughs) So it’s hard to translate. 

Mimi Parker: Right so a lot of times, I’ll have a melody in my head and it’s like a harmony to something so for him to find the note. What am I hearing in my head? 

Alan Sparhawk: It takes a while to figure out like, “What chord are you hearing, where’s the chord movement that you’re hearing?”

Mimi Parker: And so that was that one. I’d had that kind of that bridgey part for a while and then I just, it took me a little while, I labored over that one a little bit. And that one actually is about childbirth. So kind of in preparing for this, I looked at the songs again, just kind of refreshed my memory, I read a review. I read a review about this. 

Alan Sparhawk: In Pitchfork (laughs). A good review but…

Mimi Parker: It talked about my ridiculous lyrics (laughs). I think back in the day, I didn’t really read reviews. 

Alan Sparhawk: Oh no, I never saw that either. 

Mimi Parker: So I never saw that, but now I can kind of chuckle at it. But at the same time, it’s like, “Alright, you push a child out of your vagina and let’s see if you want to die (laughs). 

Alan Sparhawk: I’m sure all those twenty something year old dudes working at Pitchfork, now have probably four children, would be the first ones to admit that they would rather not give you crap about pushing a child out of your vagina (laughs). 

Mimi Parker: Yeah much different perspective (laughs). Anyway, so I kind of laugh about it now but anyway. So that’s one of those songs that definitely come about or are impacted by having a child. 

That middle section, yeah that was kind of the first time I let loose, yeah opened up a little bit. 

Alan Sparhawk: Opened up a little bit of your full voice. (laughs) You can hear it, it’s fresh and raw territory for you. 

Mimi Parker: Fresh for me, yeah. I was pretty subdued in the past but you know. 

Alan Sparhawk: It’s fun. It sounds good. 

“Whore”

Alan Sparhawk: Ah Let’s see, “Whore,” yeah I remember writing this. Again, this is this trying really hard to write good songs (laughs) and sort of really being influenced by traditional pop and trying to figure out like, “ok well what is with chords that move with a simple melody over it?” This idea of, especially stuff that would descend through each of the notes of the scale instead of just using the same two or three chords that ninety percent of music bases around, I was infatuated with, “ok well I’m going to do a descending chord.” You know, Elliott Smith, and some of our contemporaries were just masters with this stuff so I was sort of fascinated with like, “how do they do that?” Yeah that song kind of has this chromatic descending chord thing and then this melody, (sings primary melody).

Mimi Parker: Yeah it was kind of the first time I came up with a counter melody. 

Alan Sparhawk: (sings counter melody) Yeah that was key, you kind of came in with this counter melody. Instead of just being in harmony with me, that was pretty key. 

Mimi Parker: That one is definitely...

Alan Sparhawk: The limits of the flesh. I really like that song.

Mimi Parker: I do too.

Alan Sparhawk: I think it’s really great. That little bridge there, the little bridge in the middle is, “You fill your house with bells, but who can live like that. You want to speak like angels but you can’t.” Yeah I think that’s one of my favorite lines that I came up with. 

Mimi Parker: I kind of was worried that I was being a little too preachy on that song. In the end, I was like, “well I’m in the same boat.” 

Alan Sparhawk: While I’m saying, “what is the whore,” (laughs) I’m definitely more accusatory or could be taken as more accusatory. 

Mimi Parker: Yeah but I’m saying, “Well I guess you’ll get what you get. Reap what you sew.”

Alan Sparhawk: Lookout, Mim and Alan are coming to tell you how bad you are (laughs).

Mimi Parker: (laughs) No.

“Kind of Girl”

Alan Sparhawk: As we were starting to have children, our daughter was pretty fresh at this point. But sort of the concept of there being this other person who is that close to you. And someone who you’re that concerned about like, “Well what kind of life are they going to have?” And you are hopeful and fearful for their life more so than you ever were, even for your own. That can be terrifying and so you’re imagining, “What is life going to be like for this person? What is the ultimate trauma that they’ll have to deal with? How will reality look in their space as they become a more valid (laughs) lifeform than you are because they are now new and now you definitely sense, again I think that I used the word, “passing of the mantle,” sort of a weird, subtle thing that happens when you recognize that reality. So yeah, I’m kind of speaking maybe to a hypothetical future, you know my daughter, or someone that close, so to speak. 

I was pushing so hard, trying to figure out the possibilities of chord movement and stuff. Again, you know, influenced by contemporaries, people that we had toured with who were really making some really sophisticated stuff. Ida, we’d been touring a lot with Ida, and they were just great songwriters, just so good with putting sophistication into seemingly simple music. So I don’t know, I was really pushing myself. That one, you know, it’s a very tactile guitar. I’m picking and doing double stops and doing fancy stuff that sort of looks like someone who knows how to play the guitar. I always look at that one as probably the most sophisticated guitar piece that I’ve ever recorded just because of the technique that’s involved with it. And honestly it’s not typical of what I write and it’s not typical of how I play at all either. 

“Like a Forest” 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah “Like a Forest,” again (laughs), just exploring pop and trying to figure out chord movement. You know, we’re sort of trying to find ways to do it without it being sort of rock and roll backbeat. 

Mimi Parker: (laughs) Heaven forbid. We just really...Yeah (sings string part). 

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah it’s funny (laughs). Orchestral but on a real minimal level. Strings on that one (sings string part). It took a while, we were like, “Ok well try this, try this.” “Ok does this work?” “Oh no, it doesn’t work when we change to this chord.” “Ok well try this, move it to this thing.” “Ok.” (laughs) That’s how we did the strings.  

Mimi Parker: Like of the five or six types of songs that we have, maybe seven, I don’t know. That’s one. 

Alan Sparhawk: That’s one. (sings melody)

Mimi Parker: Cue strings. 

Alan Sparhawk: Kind of building and ecstatic. Yeah some of it I call, there’s a Roy Orbison influence. Listening to a lot of that and really recognizing his influence on a certain, there’s a couple iconic pop structures that Roy Orbison really defined. I don’t know if he was necessarily the pioneer but anyway he taught me those kinds of things, those are sort of certain song forms that I like and definitely have used many times. Yeah this building, building, building and (sings high note). And we’re out (laughs). 

I also think of my friend, I have a friend named John, went to college with, who blew up like an M-80 or something in his hand and kind of lost half of a couple fingers. So that’s sort of the reference to that. “Just in time to go up in my hand.” Yeah again, trying to convince someone you love to either keep going or see the truth or something, I don’t know. “Just in time...” yep, probably a precursor more to what was coming than anything. 

Mimi Parker: Maybe.

Alan Sparhawk: (laughs) Let’s say the next few years probably...

Mimi Parker: Were kind of special (laughs). 

Alan Sparhawk: I started losing my mind a little bit and the universe started collapsing for me at least. A little bit. But this was definitely (laughs), this was definitely a bright fire on the way there. 

“Closer”

Alan Sparhawk: Well our song, let’s see, “Closer,” it’s the second to last song on the record. You can definitely look at that and see that it’s sort of an intimacy song. It’s a love song, it’s you know, “Look what we’ve been through. Is that not the substance of who we are together. Look what we survived, look what we helped each other through, look what we made.” I mean that’s the substance of a relationship. So to me, that’s “Hold Me…” yeah, look at all these things. Things you’ve been through if you’ve lost everything together. When I see the “ships lay sleeping beneath, overhead, spinning past,” it’s a little bit of the imagery of two ships passing in the night except one is on the bottom of the sea and one is aimlessly drifting across the surface but is there still not intimacy there? I mean even the image of the lack of intimacy is almost intimate. Again, I keep coming back to, those are the things, that’s the substance of love and that’s the substance of eternal life. 

The title comes from “Closer,” yeah “Things We Lost in the Fire.” To me, it’s a powerful image, it’s pretty loaded and personal. I think just about anyone hears that phrase and is taken back in a little bit of terror and also immediate recalling of your memory and you’re foundation and what’s around you and what you count on as objects to find your bearing in life. I guess sort of the next question is, “Do those things matter?” Of course they do, but imagine losing them together. 

“In Metal” 

Mimi Parker: I remember with that song that I did kind of struggle with the lyrics for that one. 

Alan Sparhawk: Oh you’re talking about “In Metal.” 

Mimi Parker:  “In Metal,” yeah. 

Alan Sparhawk: Oh ok, sorry. We were still talking about the noise thing from before. 

Mimi Parker: Oh yeah well I’m getting to the nitty gritty of the song. 

Alan Sparhawk: Alright. 

Mimi Parker: I mean how much time can you spend on that noise thing?

Alan Sparhawk: Exactly (laughs). 

Mimi Parker: It’s not even listed on the record (laughs). Ok “In Metal,” yeah that was another…

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah I came up with a guitar thing and you kind of wrote this thing real quick. 

Mimi Parker: Some weird lyrics for it. That’s another one that people kind of...request.

Alan Sparhawk: Misinterpret? 

Mimi Parker: No I don’t know if they misinterpret it. That one’s kind of obvious a little bit.

Alan Sparhawk: Oh yeah well because it is...

Mimi Parker: Yeah it is kind of a grotesque reference.

Alan Sparhawk: It’s grotesque and terrifying...

Mimi Parker: (laughs) But I know when you have your kids and they’re just so sweet and you just want to wrap them up and keep them where they’re at. That’s kind of referring to that, how we just love her so much and we just want to keep her so sweet and precious. Because you never know what’s gonna happen (laughs). We knew that it was a very special moment. 

Alan Sparhawk: We wish we could keep you in this. I know we can’t, but it would be nice.

Yeah it’s fun, it’s got a good pay off (hums guitar strums). 

Mimi Parker: Yeah it’s got a little (sings melody). 

Alan Sparhawk: It’s got the acoustic indie rock funk going (laughs). 

Mimi Parker: Baby Hollis, first appearance on the record.

Alan Sparhawk: I think you had to, I remember you actually having to like squeeze her to get her to squeal in the right spots (laughs).

Mimi Parker: (laughs) I don’t...Well she would squeal but not when we wanted her to. And we might have actually done that at Tom’s. 

Alan Sparhawk: We did that at Tom’s. I think you were doing some backup vocals and she was in the room and you were trying to do a vocal and she squeaked and we were like, “ok well why don’t you bring her over close to the mic and we’ll catch a couple.” 

Mimi Parker: We’ll just keep it in there.

Alan Sparhawk: Well this was a really great record for us that we were working with people we loved. We had just gotten a good deal, our label in England, our situation in England finally was healthy and good and we had a good label there and the Christmas record had kind of gotten a lot of people’s interest up in us so when this record came out, it was really fun to like really deliver and actually have something that...I feel like we achieved what we were hoping to. It was the culmination of many hours (laughs) in the van, listening to music and learning about how records were made. Yeah I mean when you hear music, you go, “wow I wonder what it would be like to do that.” 

Mimi Parker: Yeah it was a first with some of the songs like “Dinosaur Act.” We were venturing out a little bit and we were breaking out of the rules that we’d kind of, the parameters that we’d set for ourselves a little bit. We decided, “Well maybe we don’t have to be so strict. To these ideals that we’ve had in the past.” And yeah so I think this was...

Alan Sparhawk: It was kind of an arrival of like, “Oh!”

Mimi Parker: An arrival and a departure to something else. 

Outro:

Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Low. You’ll also find a link to stream or purchase Things We Lost in the Fire. Thanks for listening.

Credits:

“Sunflower"

"Whitetail"

"Dinosaur Act"

"Medicine Magazines"

"Laser Beam"

"July"

"Embrace"

"Whore"

"Kind of Girl"

"Like a Forest"

"Closer"

"In Metal"

© ℗ Chairkickers Music/BMI

© 2001 Kranky

Written and Performed by Low:

Alan Sparhawk

Mimi Parker

Zak Sally

with:

Mark degli Antoni: piano, keyboards, sampler 

Daniel Huffman: guitar, loops, noises

Tresa Ellickson: viola

Jaron Childs: cello

Bob Weston: trumpet

Ida Pearle: violin

Zach Wallace: double bass

Dusty Sayre: backing vocals

Hollis Mae: squeaks, yells

Recorded by: Steve Albini at Electrical Audio, Chicago, IL

Additional recording by: Tom Herbers at Third Ear, Minneapolis, MN

Mixed by: Steve Albini and Low

Mastered by: John Golden

Theme Music:

“Winter Cold” by North Home

℗ Meladdy Music (ASCAP)

Intro/Outro Music:

“Away From Home” by North Home

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Mixing assistance by Nick Stargu and Jeremy Whitwam

Mastered by Jeremy Whitwam