He didn’t go outside for weeks. I guess that’s what depression can do. He wasn’t socially interacting, for fear of perpetuating the sadness. Writer’s block precluded any new music. His relationship was ending. There was the constant reminder of debilitating stage fright that plagued his earlier tours. A dark time, indeed. When you begin to cave into yourself, I guess what else can you do but change everything.
Howie Beck moved to Paris to record How to Fall Down in Public from Toronto, after a five year hiatus. The two-minute, mid-album instrumental “Fin” captures this move. It’s not cathartic, it’s reflective. Although seeping with sadness, the bright major chords played on the piano are silver linings. I imagine Beck, a multi-instrumentalist who produced much of his own work, in Paris casually playing on a guitar and crafting the melody and articulating more in an instrumental than in a thousand words. “Fin” (French for “end”) could mean anything — the end of his relationship, the end of his happiness, or perhaps it means the end of his demons, or the end of his fear.
Howie Beck – “Fin”
