With more than six million Americans living with Alzheimer’s dementia —that number is projected to rise considerably over the coming years—Hayes Carll delivers a critical message in a moving new music video for his single, “Help Me Remember.”
Videos by American Songwriter
The poignant track and accompanying video draws on the Grammy-nominees personal experience with the degenerative disease that affects one in 10 people ages 65 and older. “I was fourteen years old and sitting in the passenger seat of my grandfather’s truck in Waco, Texas, the town he had lived in for most of his life,” Carll shares of his own experience. “He turned to me at a stoplight and asked me where we were. He looked scared. I know I was. I’ve thought a lot since then about what it must feel like to lose the thread of your own story.”
Wielding characteristic empathy, the enduring storyteller reaches into the hearts of his dedicated listeners with poignant lyricism. Penned from the perspective of someone who recognizes their memory beginning to fade, the song’s subject grapples with the fear of knowing what lies ahead of them on their road as an Alzheimer’s patient.
“It’s a visual song. To tell this story, we had to put the listener right there,” Carll says. “I was thinking about how scary and sad it is for the person who is suffering from it, and how heartbreaking and frustrating it is for the friends and family going through it with them.”
He adds, “This song is for the people who’ve experienced what my grandfather did, those that are experiencing it currently, and for those who serve as their witnesses and caregivers.”
“Help Me Remember” follows his latest single, “She’ll Come Back To Me,” ahead of his forthcoming record, You Get It All. Due October 29 via Dualtone Music, Carll’s eighth studio album is available for pre-order on limited edition vinyl, here.
More information and resources from the Alzheimer’s Association are available, here.
Watch the video for “Help Me Remember,” below.
Photo Credit: David McClister
