The Water from The Water by Sunflowers for Sam

This was the first song I wrote for the EP. It took me a while to find the right words and melody to fit with the chords. I had a different idea, at first, that I was trying to force into the song, but it wasn't working. The part about taking someone to the water, and just sitting with them, was what the original idea led to, and so I made it the whole point of the song.

The chords to this song, as well as part of the melody, remind me a lot of Mount Eerie. I don't really aim to take inspiration directly, or to emulate anybody else's sound, but I can often retroactively hear how I've been influenced by other artists and the music I've been listening to. I feel that Phil's music, experimental and raw, allowed me to give myself permission to make this EP, in a way. The way I recorded and mixed it is a lot... "less" than what I would normally do, and different to other music I'm working on now. But that was the point of this EP, to be personal, acoustic, and raw.

The idea of sitting by someone, and that being the limit of what you can do, is inspired by a scene from a 2021 anime called Sonny Boy. Without spoiling it, there's a character who's crying, and overcome with grief. The character next to him, his friend, tells him that in all his life and travels, he has never found a better way to support someone than to just be with them while they experience what they're going through. I relate to that a lot, and have always wanted to write something similar into a song. This song was the right time, because it also relates to what I've been going through lately. In my life, I have been the person crying, and, more recently, the person who sits by the crying person.

Tracklist

1.	The Water	2:48

Lyrics

I'll take you to the water,
And sit by you,
But that's all I'll ever do.

I'll hold you for a moment,
And lay with you,
But that's all I can do.

Credits

from The Water, released November 20, 2024

License