'All I was doing was living': How Dallas Green explores grief on his new City and Colour album

Q53:59Dallas Green + Debby Friday

Introspection has been a key element throughout City and Colour's discography.

"When I put out the first record, and it was basically just a bunch of journal entries to six- and- a- half minute long acoustic songs, a bunch of people took that and ran with it," Dallas Green told Q's Tom Power. "I've always sort of felt supported in this way of writing."

But, in crafting his latest album, The Love Still Held Me Near, Green knew he no longer could write purely from his own perspective.

"The things I was going through were absolutely not singular to me and my friends," the Alexisonfire band member said.

WATCH | Dallas Green's interview with Tom Power:

"I was experiencing the grief of my friend who I considered a brother, I was experiencing the loss of love in a way," he said. "I was experiencing the sort of loss of what I assumed my identity was — just this person who goes out and makes music and tours, and then that was not there."

Karl "Horse" Bareham was a British music producer and engineer that worked with Alexisonfire on tour from the mid-2000s. When Green began releasing music as City and Colour with his 2005 solo debut Sometimes, Bareham became an integral part of the recording process — helping to produce his 2019 album A Pill for Loneliness. 

Shortly after the latter album's release, Bareham passed away unexpectedly. Green toured in support of the album not long after he learned the devastating news and a whole group of friends who had worked with Bareham were left in mourning. 

"I think for everybody that was involved it stopped time," said Green. "It's so strange that the pandemic would follow months later — it really just separated all of us too and then we went into this grieving period."

Moving through life

Much of The Love Still Held Me Near is explicitly about the loss of Green's friend. 

"So much of it is informed by losing Karl because it's the deepest experience I've ever had to go through regarding grief," said Green. 

"It's just about loss as a whole, trying to move through that and find your way to the other side of it," he said. "Me being the way I am, and writing about my feelings, it was a really interesting process to go through.… How do you write about something like that elegantly and still be as honest as possible?"

Helping others

By writing about a very personal experience, Green created an album that appeals to people more broadly.

"I like to have these big, unanswerable questions that I pined over and then just try to write like a little, pretty simple song about it," he said. I can just write a document that represents where I am as a human being right now in this stage of my life and then you just hope that it can grow wings and resonate with somebody else."

But in creating this album, he could also help other friends who were reeling from the sudden loss — mourning exacerbated by the pandemic. 

"All I was doing was living," he said. "Then I thought, 'OK, I can write about this. This is not just for me, but this is just something I can do.'"

Learning and growing

While The Love Still Held Me Near is a highly emotional album, many of its songs resonate with hope.

"So many of these songs were about our friend who we used to make records with, and he's not here," he said. 

For Green, the album ended up feeling like a reunion of friends — many of whom had worked closely with Bareham.

"We had all been going through their own versions of the pandemic and life changing … but I'm really proud of us," he said. "I think we made a really beautiful sounding record that sounds alive."

In the aftermath of struggling with this loss, Green would return to play some of these songs in Australia, where Bareham had lost his life.

"We went back to the small town, we had lunch where 'Horse' had breakfast, for the last time," he said. "There was no part of me that was not going to go back to Australia because I had had so many beautiful moments there, and a lot of them with Horse." 

"To avoid it is to do nothing of service for yourself."

In going through such a personal loss and creating such a personal record, Green feels as if he has changed for the better. 

"I did think I found a new version of myself [and] I think I found some way to be proud of myself," he said.

"I think I found that instead of going the way that I could have gone in the darkness, I chose the other way and I do feel different."

The full interview with Dallas Green is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Dallas Green produced by Vanessa Nigro.