Joy, Sorrow & Loss
Music: Eyes To The Wind
Artist: The War On Drugs
Shared by: Ian
“I might not air-drum like I used to, but I’m beginning to love it again. Now it’s starting to symbolise our ability to get through the hard times.”
Most mornings during lockdown I’d start the day at my desk up in the attic with this song: The War on Drugs ‘Eyes to the Wind’ recorded for the Austin City Limits TV show. I’d turn up the volume on my speakers and air-drum madly to the YouTube clip. It’d lift me every single time, putting me in such a positive mindset for the day ahead. With my attic doors open, the music would float downstairs to where my wife Zoë was working at the dining table.
In July 2024 Zoë and I went to see the band play at London’s Royal Albert Hall. A lot had happened since the pandemic. In October 2023 I’d been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. In spring 2024 I was told the surgery I'd had in December hadn’t got rid of it. I’d need more treatment. It wasn’t the outcome we were expecting. It had been a really difficult time. But there’s something about live music that always lifts my spirits so it was good to be at a gig again.
When the band opened their set with ‘Eyes to the Wind,’ it knocked me off course. As I heard the opening chords, I felt so many emotions all at once: joy, sorrow, loss. Then Charlie Hall’s drums kicked in and I welled up with emotion. I started sobbing. One of the lines frontman Adam Granduciel sings is ‘I’m a bit run down at the moment,’ and it summed up so much. I looked to my right and Zoë was crying too. She told me the song is symbolic of my time before cancer, and now so much had changed and so much was lost. Life was now different. In our own ways, yet side by side at the concert, we were mourning our life before; we were feeling the weight of all we’d gone through together. It was deeply touching.
Writing this in spring 2025 I still have cancer. I’ve been through a course of radiotherapy and am now on another long-term treatment path. These days I don’t listen to ‘Eyes to the Wind’ like I used to because of what it meant to me back before my diagnosis. I might not air-drum like I used to, but I’m beginning to love it again. Now it’s starting to symbolise our ability to get through the hard times. And for me it’s a reminder that despite the challenges, despite the uncertainty about what the future might bring, I’m still here.