to everyone who had a good pandemic
KŌAN LP closer: quiet without you, podcast as noise, Google life expectancy: boss says just a cold, why'd I laugh along; don't dance and sing about it.
Listen: Spotify·Apple Music
ISRC QZHN32255318 (soundexchange)
Track twenty-six on KŌAN, the LP closer, fourth movement only (after Miss Disinformation). Not on the KŌAN A/B/C chapters. Luke solo. The record ends not on an answer but on an address, to the people who thrived while others didn’t.
It opens on absence as sound: it’s quiet here without you / I listen to a podcast to fill the noise you left behind, grief measured in empty hours, with background audio standing in for a person. Then the search engine as oracle, I Google my life expectancy / how do you expect me to live another 40 years without you hearing how I’m doing. The dead don’t get updates.
The title refrain is the thesis, and it isn’t envy: I hope that you won’t dance and sing about it, a plea against performative recovery, sharpened on the last pass to I sure hope that you wouldn’t brag about it. Around it, return-to-office horror, everybody’s joking now / it’s just a cold / it’s over now, where you laugh because they are my boss after all, same boss energy as a song to quit your job to and No Worries, Yes Worries. The bridge turns that complicity over and over (oh why’d I laugh along), I’m an Idiot’s social fake-laugh with a moral hangover after loss.
It closes the full KŌAN arc from Think About It through pandemic-era Boardwalk and the Big Hug re-entry to one plain line: some people didn’t get a good pandemic. Pairs with Pandemic Blues and A Good Life on Masks and Monsters, and with Miss Disinformation: one lies about facts, one dances over graves.
Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp. Artwork by Grizzard Graphics.
Lyrics
It's quiet here without you I listen to a podcast To fill the noise You left Behind You left Me so much time I Google my life expectancy How do you expect me To live another 40 years without You hearing How I'm doing I'm not fine To everyone who had a good pandemic I hope that you won't dance and sing about it It's quiet here without you So quiet here without you I need to work To get my mind distracted Everybody's joking now It's just a cold It's over now I laugh and smile They are my boss after all I laughed along Laughed along Laughed along Laughed along I laughed along Laughed along I laughed along Oh why'd I laugh along Laughed along Oh why did I laugh along Laughed along Oh why did I laugh along I laughed along Laughed along Oh why'd I laugh Why'd I ever laugh along? To everyone who had a good pandemic I hope that you won't dance and sing about it To everyone who had a good pandemic I sure hope that you wouldn't brag about it