Vancouver Folk/Pop Duo FOCUS YOUR AUDIO Releases “The Long Goodbye”
There are times in one’s life when you realize life is precious, time is precious, and memories, despite illnesses that can make them disappear, can last forever. For Vancouver-based duo Focus Your Audio — Bobcaygeon, Ontario singer Sarah Stewart and Coquitlam, BC musician Bobby McAloney — those feelings are vividly captured in the hauntingly precious single “The Long Goodbye.” It’s a gorgeous, tear-inducing effort detailing the topic of dementia and how difficult it is to see loved ones gradually slip away.
Although universal in its empathy, Stewart says the song was inspired by her nursing career and meeting a special elderly woman who was diagnosed with progressive dementia.
“’The Long Goodbye’ was written about an incredible woman, someone whose details I didn’t want to lose,” she says. “This song was based on a single mother who beat all odds, attended medical school in the ’60s, and went on to have an incredible impact on the world around her.”
Stewart says while caring for the woman, the woman’s daughter said something that deeply hit a nerve.
“‘I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it when my mother won’t remember my name; I guess that’s why they call it the long goodbye,'” Stewart recalled the daughter saying. “It was at that moment that I was hit in the chest with layers of gravity. I instantly said to myself, ‘I’m going to write a song about this, and ‘The Long Goodbye’ was born.”
“The Long Goodbye,” produced and engineered by Mike Young best known as Mother Mother’s bassist, came to life when Stewart’s lyrics melded perfectly with a “beautiful piece of instrumental music” McAloney had. The sparse instrumentation features primarily Stewart’s hauntingly beautiful vocals, McAloney on acoustic guitar, and cellist Peggy Lee adding more gravitas to the already poignant, moving single. Fans of Sarah McLachlan, Allison Moorer, or Shawn Colvin would find this barren but blissful single a keeper.
“When the lyrics were written, the merriment of that and the music left us with a gift that was meant to be shared with others,” Stewart says of “The Long Goodbye” which was written by Stewart and McAloney in West Vancouver and recorded at Vancouver’s Studio Y and Hipposonic Recording Studio. “Every time I listen to this song, it’s like the first time. I go through all of the emotions of watching loved ones empty themselves over and over again in the walking out of their own long goodbye.”
“The Long Goodbye” is the latest single for a duo who have made inroads in Vancouver music circles and the Canadian music scene. “When you strip it all away, we’re two people who fell madly in love through the process of creating music and have never looked back,” McAloney says of his partnership with Stewart.
In 2019 Focus Your Audio released their debut EP and have released successful singles ever since. Collectively their singles “Shades,” “Over There” and “On Your Own” have amassed over 300,000 streams and have had songs on the Netflix film The Half Of It Spotify playlist. “On Your Own” also garnered global attention when Swedish DJ/record producer StoneBridge (Ne-Yo, Beyonce) remixed the single featured on StoneBridge’s SiriusXM BPM Mix channel. Publications such as Canadian Music Week, The Georgia Straight, and Aesthetic Magazine have all highlighted Focus Your Audio. And they’ve shared the stage with Tobias The Owl, Samantha Martin, and Delta Sugar, among others, while performing at Vancouver’s The Railway Club and Calgary’s Ironwood Stage.
Now with the single “The Long Goodbye” (and a music video created by Quest Coast Studios for the song), Focus Your Audio are set to pull at your heartstrings with this memorable, emotional song. Although Focus Your Audio didn’t tell the family of the woman they wrote or recorded the song, “The Long Goodbye” will resonate with anyone who has a heart.
“When we perform this song live, the room goes quiet, and we can see tears in the audience’s eyes,” Stewart says. “We know they’re relating it to their own lives.”
Hi, Bobby and Sarah! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers?
Focus Your Audio is a blend of west coast grit with east coast charm to create a sound that’s as unrestrained as it is captivating. The Georgia Straight aptly describes our music as Bobby’s “blackheart guitar leavened by Sarah’s, angels-and-whiskey vocals.” Our seamless fusion of Indie Pop, Alt-Folk, and Rock and Roll forms an enchanting auditory tapestry, with Sarah’s voice delivering a sonic avalanche of passion and depth while Bobby crafts the perfect musical landscape.
Can you tell us more about the personal connection you have to “The Long Goodbye” and how it was inspired by Sarah’s experience as a nurse?
This song was inspired by a woman I (Sarah) had the privilege of taking care of. The song was born from a conversation with the woman’s daughter who told me that she didn’t think she would be able to handle it when her mother no longer knew her name, “I guess that’s why they call it the long goodbye” she said. At that moment, I knew I needed to write a song about this, about her mother who had impacted some profoundly. I’ve had the privilege of taking care of some incredible people in my time as a nurse and she was one that I didn’t want to forget. So the song is loosely based on her life and the love story of her family.
What was it like collaborating together on such an emotional piece? Did you find yourselves leaning on each other during the songwriting process?
We’ve found that we respect each other’s creative processes and let one another have complete space to create individually. Bobby will often have a piece of music that he shares with me and then I will create the melody and write the lyrics to it depending on the feeling I get from the music. The were moments while writing this song that did leave me gutted and so I would share with Bobby the emotional roller coaster of writing her story. The lyrics are honouring someone’s life and for anyone going through the same experience.
How did working with Mike Young, Mother Mother’s bassist, impact the production of “The Long Goodbye”? Were there any unique choices in the studio that helped achieve the song’s emotional depth?
Mike Young is a musical genius, he elevates any project he works on. We decided that the simplicity of this song is what was best, not adding too much production. The lyric and guitar were what we wanted as the driving force. Mike created the cello piece, which Peggy Lee performed beautifully, as well as created and played the xylophone on the song.
Your music has a growing presence, with songs featured on major platforms and collaborations with other artists. How does “The Long Goodbye” fit into the evolution of your music and what you hope to achieve as a duo?
We’re excited about the future of our music, it’s a privilege to be able to share our art and have people want to hear what we’re creating. The Long Goodbye was a gift that we felt shouldn’t just be kept on a voice memo, it was meant to be shared. We’re hearing how the song is impacting people and that’s what it’s all about. This is a quiet ballad but has so much depth. When we think about our music, the message is always at the heart of what we create. This song is an evolution of our songwriting as we’ve never written about someone’s life in this capacity. What started as heartache when we began this song, quickly became a celebration of humanity and a song to bring comfort to those hurting.
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