Songwriter and producer David Malloy stepped away from making music after the loss of his only son, Mason, in 2005. For years he put his creative endeavors on the shelf, until he was inspired to write again after a conversation with a friend who happened to be a psychic medium. Malloy wasn’t really into all that, but he gave it a shot anyway.
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During the psychic reading, Malloy said he was given a message from his late son, asking why he wasn’t writing music anymore. That was the spark he needed to start Mirror, a new album that feels more like a memoir than a collection of songs. It tracks Malloy’s highs and lows over the past 18 years since his son’s death, giving listeners a peek into his grief and healing over time.
The track “A Brand New Day” opens the album with birdsong as the acoustic guitar quickly builds into a cheerful, throw open the windows and greet the sun type of song. This and “You Know Where To Find Me” do a great job of introducing the album as a pure reflection of Malloy’s journey through grief—the grieving process is non-linear, and sometimes when you feel you’re doing OK, you’ll suddenly be reminded of something about a person you lost.
David Malloy Creates a Reflection of a Long Grieving Process on Recent Album Mirror
Mirror feels like that non-linear grieving process. The strive towards getting over the loss, the rises and falls, the urgency that comes with grief. You want it to run its course so badly so you can get back to regular life, but that’s just not how grief works. David Malloy understands that, and he put it all into Mirror.
“Mason’s Wallet” is a great example of David Malloy expressing his loss but attempting to rectify it within himself. In the song, Malloy shares that he put Mason’s wallet in my front pocket eighteen years ago and that I trust it with the memories it holds. He admits that healing time moves so slow, but throughout the song he imagines his son explaining why healing from loss is such a glacially slow endeavor. Eventually, he comes to thank God the healing time moves so slow.
Grief never really ends, it only gets easier to manage over time. Especially losing a child—you never truly stop grieving that loss. Mirror is a beautiful reflection of the fact that grief is not a straight line. David Malloy has created an autobiographical masterpiece of loss and healing, backed by the love he has for the people in his life. This is David Malloy’s most David Malloy album yet, as he finally gets to embody his own emotions and persona.
“To connect soul to soul would be the highest achievement I could ever hope for with my listeners,” Malloy said in a statement on his website. Soul to soul and grief to grief, Malloy has created something accessible for anyone who has experienced the life-altering undulations of loss.
Featured Image by Elliott Anderson
