Whenever I hear this song, it manages to simultaneously make me want to cry, lie on a blanket in a field on a sunny day and trudge around a certain rustic upstate college town in snow boots at dusk. Why? Because Mark Linkous knew how to make some beautiful music. Unfortunately, the same melancholy that translates into melodic genius can be a burden too great to bear, and Sparklehorse fans were deeply saddened by the news on Saturday night that its lead singer had taken his own life at 47. While the suicide was not a complete shock — Linkous was actually dead for two minutes after ingesting Valium and antidepressants on a 1996 tour, leaving him permanently crippled — the announcement earlier this week that his collaboration with Danger Mouse and director David Lynch would finally be released made it all the more tragic (the project has been completed but held up by legal issues with EMI for months). LInkous’ publicist also confirmed that he was nearly finished working on a new album on Anti- Records, so stay posted as to a possible posthumous release.
