Then Came the Morning, the second album by the Southern-born, Brooklyn-based indie-folk trio the Lone Bellow, opens with a crest of churchly piano, a patter of drums, and a fanfare of voices harmonizing like a sunrise. It’s a powerful introduction, enormous and overwhelming, as Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin testify mightily to life’s great struggles and joys, heralding the morning that dispels the dark night: “Then came the morning! It was bright, like the light that you kept from your smile!” Working with producer Aaron Dessner of the National, the Lone Bellow has created a sound that mixes folk sincerity, gospel fervor, even heavy metal thunder, but the heart of the band is harmony: three voices united in a lone bellow.
"The feeling I get singing with Zach and Brian is completely natural and wholly electrifying,” says Kanene. “Our voices feel like they were made to sing together."
Long before they combined their voices, the three members of the Lone Bellow were singing on their own. Brian had been writing and recording as a solo artist for more than a decade, with three albums under his own name. Kanene and her husband Jason were living in Beijing, China, hosting open mic nights, playing at local clubs and teaching music lessons. Zach began writing songs in the wake of a family tragedy: After his wife was thrown from a horse, he spent days in the hospital at her bedside, bracing for the worst news. The journal he kept during this period would eventually become his first batch of songs as a solo artist. Happily, his wife made a full recovery.
When Kanene’s brother asked her and Zach to sing “O Happy Day” together at his wedding, they discovered their voices fit together beautifully, but starting a band together seemed impossible when they lived on opposite sides of the world. Brian soon relocated to New York and Kanene moved there to attend culinary school a couple years later. The three got together in their new hometown to work on a few songs of Zach’s, he’d been chipping away at the scene as a solo artist for awhile by then. After hitting those first harmonies did they decide to abandon all other pursuits. Soon the trio was playing all over the city, although they considered Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side to be their home. They opened for the Civil Wars, Dwight Yokam, Brandi Carlile and the Avett Brothers, and their self-titled debut, produced by Nashville’s Charlie Peacock (the Civil Wars, Holly Williams) and released in January 2013, established them as one of the boldest new acts in the Americana movement.
After two hard years of constant touring, the band was exhausted but excited. By 2014, they had written nearly 40 songs on the road and were eager to get them down on tape. After putting together a list of dream producers, they reached out to their first choice, the National guitarist Aaron Dessner, who has helmed albums by the L.A. indie-rock group Local Natives and New York singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten.
“It occurred to me that it would be fun to get together and make music with them,” says Aaron. “My main interest in producing records is community and friendship more than making money. I already do a lot of traveling and working with the National, so when I have to time to work with other artists, it should be fun and meaningful.”
“Aaron is just so kind,” Zach says. “And he has surrounded himself with all these incredibly talented people, like Jonathan Low, the engineer. His brother Bryce [Dessner, also a guitarist for the National] wrote these amazing brass and string arrangements, and he got some of his friends to play with us.”
Dessner and the Lone Bellow spent two weeks recording at Dreamland in upstate New York, a nineteenth-century church that had been converted into a homey studio. The singers found the space to inspire the emotional gravity necessary for the material and the acoustics they were looking for. (For Kanene, Dreamland had one other bonus: “I’m a big Muppets fan, and it looks exactly like the church where Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem lived.”)
Aaron set them up in a circle in what had once been the sanctuary, with microphones hanging in the rafters to capture the sound of their voices bleeding together. Most of the vocals were recorded in single takes, a tactic that adds urgency to songs like “Heaven Don’t Call Me Home” and “If You Don’t Love Me.” “There were a couple of times when somebody sang the wrong word or hit a bad note, and we just had to keep going,” says Zach, who says that recording “Marietta” in particular was daunting—especially the moment near the end when he hits an anguished high note, bends it even higher, and holds it for an impossibly long time. It’s a startling display of vocal range, but it’s also almost unbearably raw in its emotional honesty.
“‘Marietta’ is probably the darkest song on the whole record,” Zach explains, “and it’s based on something that happened between my wife and me. The band was getting ready to record that song when all of a sudden my wife showed up with our youngest baby. It was a great surprise, a beautiful moment. So I was able to go out and sing that song, knowing she was there to help me carry the moment.”
“These are true stories,” says Brian. “These aren’t things we made up. We tried to write some songs that had nothing to do with our personal stories, but we just didn’t respond to them. But we’re best buds, so we know each others’ personal stuff and trust each other to figure out what needs to be said and how to say it.” Case in point: Brian wrote “Call to War” about his own struggles during his twenties, but gave the song to Kanene to sing. “The content is painful and brutal,” she says, “but the imagery, the vocals, they build something delicate and ethereal. That kind of contrast illuminates the true beauty and power of a song.”
Says Brian, “We do this one thing together, and we carry each other. Hopefully that makes the listener want to be a part of it. It becomes a communal thing, which means that there’s never a sad song to sing. It’s more a celebration of the light and the dark.”
-Descendant Records
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You Don't Love Me Like You Used To
The Lone Bellow Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Just a spirit haunting my bedroom
House I’ve built for you feels like a tomb
You don’t love me like you used to
You waited at the bus stop, flowers in hand
A yellow tulip for each hour we’ve spent
Apart for now, my broken heart, an empty hand
I’m buried in the of my cold
Along with all, the notes I’ve wrote
If I done thought you’d read them
You don’t love me like you used to
You don’t hear me when I’m talking to you
Just an old book that just breeze on through
You don’t love me like you used to
I come on and the day will set just right
And what you said gone fill my appetite
I know for sure, your kitchen’s closing early every night
And day I wish that you would go away
And find another soul to suffocate
And I love you so
But you should know I can’t go on this way
I can’t go on this way, I can’t go on this way
I can’t go on this way, I can’t go on this way
You don’t love me like you used to
Just a spirit haunting my bedroom
House I’ve built for you feels like a tomb
You don’t love me like you used to
You don’t love me like you used to
You don’t hear me when I’m talking to you
Just an old book that just breeze on through
You don’t love me like you used to
You don’t love me, you don’t love me
You don’t love me, like you used to.
The Lone Bellow's song "You Don't Love Me Like You Used To" is a heartbreaking ballad about a relationship that has lost its spark. The singer laments that his partner no longer loves him as deeply as she once did, and he feels like he's living in a ghost town. He has built a "house" for her, but it's become a "tomb" rather than a home. He remembers waiting at the bus stop with flowers, hoping to rekindle their romance, but now he feels like an old book that she breezes through without really paying attention. He wishes she would leave him so he can move on from the suffocating relationship.
The lyrics paint a vivid picture of the singer's pain and despair. He feels trapped and alone, despite being in a relationship. The use of imagery, such as the tomb-like house and the old book, conjures up a sense of hopelessness and loss. The repetition of the phrase "You don't love me like you used to" emphasizes the deep sadness and longing at the heart of the song. The melody is haunting and melancholic, adding to the overall feeling of heartbreak.
Line by Line Meaning
You don’t love me like you used to
The love between us has changed and is not as strong as it once was.
Just a spirit haunting my bedroom
I still feel your presence in my life, but it's no longer comforting.
House I’ve built for you feels like a tomb
The life that I have created for us feels suffocating and lifeless.
You waited at the bus stop, flowers in hand
You have done sweet, romantic things for me in the past, but you no longer make those efforts.
A yellow tulip for each hour we’ve spent
Each hour we spent apart was filled with longing for you and the love that we shared.
Apart for now, my broken heart, an empty hand
Being apart from you has left me feeling broken and alone.
That always wanted just to hold you close
I have always wanted to be physically close to you, to feel your comfort and warmth.
I’m buried in the of my cold
I am trapped in my own sadness and despair, unable to escape it.
Along with all, the notes I’ve wrote
All of the heartfelt messages I have written to you are stored away with my sadness.
If I done thought you’d read them
If I had believed that you would truly listen and understand my feelings, I would have shared them with you.
You don’t hear me when I’m talking to you
You no longer listen to me or respond to my attempts to communicate with you.
Just an old book that just breeze on through
To you, I am just a forgotten part of your life, like an old book that you no longer care to read.
I come on and the day will set just right
Sometimes, I have moments of hope and happiness, but they never last.
And what you said gone fill my appetite
Even small gestures or sweet words from you can momentarily fill the void and desire I have for your love.
I know for sure, your kitchen’s closing early every night
You have become distant and uninterested in nurturing our relationship, both emotionally and physically.
And day I wish that you would go away
At times, I wish that you would just leave my life, so I could move on and find a love that reciprocates my feelings.
And find another soul to suffocate
I fear that if you do find someone else, they will suffer the same fate as me, loving you but never feeling loved in return.
But you should know I can’t go on this way
I cannot continue living in this constant state of heartbreak and longing for a love that is no longer there.
You don’t love me, you don’t love me
I have come to accept that the love between us is gone and cannot be revived.
You don’t love me like you used to.
The love we once shared is a thing of the past, and I must move on from it.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TWENTY TEN MUSIC
Written by: BRIAN ELMQUIST, KANENE PIPKIN, MATTHEW KNAPP, TRISHA HORST, ZACH WILLIAMS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind