A Big Hug
Big Hug closer, Luke solo: no one here gets out alive, and that's okay: flawed and beautiful, a big hug is all we need.
Listen: Spotify·Apple Music
ISRC QZMEP2188965 (soundexchange)
Title track of Big Hug, Luke solo, no co-writes. DistroKid and Apple list it as A Big Hug; the album tracklist may show Big Hug, same song. The June Lake water recording belongs to A Little Hug on the earlier EP. This is the LP closer, the same therapeutic thesis scaled up.
For a uke song it’s quietly philosophical without announcing it. The first verse runs epistemology through bandwidth limits, other minds reduced to 480p vision and the infinite simplified and alien, too much to take in and not enough to trust. The second verse asks the big ones plainly, what are we really? Are we the only consciousness we’ve got?, the same cosmic loneliness as Derrida Makes a Différance and What Makes You You, but landing on warmth instead of nihilism.
The chorus borrows a mortal refrain (no one here gets out alive, a Doors echo) and answers it: a big hug is all I need… we are only human, flawed and beautiful. The outro lets it rest, and that’s okay, it’s the only way for us to get a big hug. Finite life as the precondition for tenderness, the whole LP thesis in three minutes. After A Little Hug’s small recovery object, this is the full hug: strangers can enter (I’m an Idiot, SDMA era), collaborators appear (Hold Up, All in the Feeling), and the record closes on mortality and warmth. What comes next is KŌAN.
Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp.
Lyrics
A single impression's all you get The infinite Simplified and alien Nothing resembling you Yeah, I know your type 480p vision I'm throttling Too much to take it all in I don't trust your face Identity is what you see But what are we, yeah what are we really? Don't really know if God exists Are we the only consciousness we've got? No one here gets out alive Yeah No one here gets out alive Yeah yeah No one here gets out alive No one here gets out alive A big hug is all I need You understand We are only human Flawed and beautiful No one here gets out alive Oh No one here gets out alive Yeah No one here gets out alive Yeah yeah No one here gets out alive And that's okay That's okay It's the only way For us To get A big hug