A tender acoustic lullaby, Sweet Louise is a beautifully considered folk-pop tune that feels like a blend of The Weepies, First Aid Kit, and Saint Boy.
Written by Dawn Hummer, who is Spencer from Livingmore’s close family friend (more like an Auntie to him, we’re told), there is an interesting and quite charming backstory to the song.
In the words of the band: “After Dawn lost home to the Woolsey fires, she found herself renting a house that once belonged to a woman named Louise, who was now living in a dementia care facility.
As Dawn learned about Louise’s life and looked through photographs still neatly placed on the wall of all the places Louise had been and the adventures she’d lived, she began to notice the quiet synchronicities between them.
Though their circumstances were different, both women had lost their homes in their own ways, and both were being asked to surrender to change they didn’t choose.
The song really spoke to us — how sometimes home isn’t something you can see, and how stories, family, and friends can carry what might otherwise be lost.”
A beautiful sentiment, wonderfully executed, Livingmore has really done justice to this deeply personal but also very relatable perspective. Whether we’ve been displaced ourselves or know someone who has been, it’s an all-too-familiar problem these days. And that’s before we get onto the subject of mental health deterioration.
Sweet Louise manages to feel undeniably tragic but at the same time quite sweet and almost celebratory. Commending what came before rather than lamenting the circumstances – out of our control – that preside over us now.
It encourages us to love what we have (or what we had) and to carry the things that matter to us with us in our hearts, because home is where you are, rather than where you live.
Written by Kinda Grizzly
