Holding Absence | False Dawn
There is a difference between knowing something and feeling something. While I know that I am a decent parent I do not always feel that way. I find it so much easier to think of my shortcomings than any value I serve. No lyric states this as pointedly as the chorus of False Dawn by Holding Absence from their most recent album, The Noble Art Of Self Destruction.
“Save your faith, I'll let you down again
Well, I’m failing you and I'm failing myself
'Cause I'm a false dawn lying through my teeth
On the horizon, there's nothing left to see
Save your faith, I'll let you down again”
Specifically, “Well, I’m failing you and I’m failing myself”. As if letting someone else down wasn’t enough, there is a certain guilt you feel when you know you could be doing better and you are letting yourself down. When you know you could have reacted to something better, let the kids stay an extra 10 minutes at the park, or acted against the values you are trying to instill in your children - namely kindness, patience, and empathy in this case. I think about this single lyric far more often than any other.
Lucas Woodland’s voice sings the words in my head all the time, most often on Saturdays when I’m spending the day with the kids while my partner is working. Sometimes the voice reciting the lyric is a whisper, other times a shout. Sometimes it appears during a brief moment of respite in the quiet corners of the house, other times with the girls held close or in the car during nap time (a habit we have yet to break).
Ultimately False Dawn is a song about expectations. The broadness and specificity of the lyrics is what makes this song so appealing and one of Holding Absence’s best. Someone else listening to this song could be picturing the expectations of their significant other or any other significant person in their life and have their emotional reaction shaped by their relationship to that person.
Even though this song speaks straight to my core, the truth is I know I’m doing a good job no matter how I may feel at times. There are plenty of moments where I feel adored by my daughters and know that I am a source of their happiness. But there is always this feeling underneath that no matter how I’m doing, I could be doing better by them. In some ways I think as a parent to be mindful is to be good, but the curse of being mindful is being aware of the shortfalls.
The lyric continues “I’m a false dawn lying through my teeth, on the horizon there is nothing left to see”. While I share the pessimism of these lyrics, I know that each dawn is a new opportunity, to do better by them, to do better by me. And that maybe just reaching for that horizon is enough.
