All language subtitles for This.Is.Sparklehorse.2022.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-LAMA

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[static crackling]
[melancholic rock music]

- [Narrator] The space between the dials,

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the speaking valves, the
fields of sonic elation.

These were your homage.

The mutant, the dross of our universe,

you put them together,
this was your offering.

The unsung, broken but still smiling

discarded toys of our collective pasts.

It is a hard world for little things.

Polish is to be despised.

In a glaring, shiny world,

the recesses, the
unloved and the cast off.

This is your dominion.

This is Sparklehorse.

[static crackling]

["Sad and Beautiful
World" by Sparklehorse]

["Sad and Beautiful World"
by Sparklehorse continues]

["Sad and Beautiful World"
by Sparklehorse continues]

"Sometimes I get so sad"

["Sad and Beautiful World"
by Sparklehorse continues]

"Sometimes you just make me mad"

"It's a sad and beautiful world"

["Sad and Beautiful World"
by Sparklehorse continues]

"It's a sad and beautiful world"

["Sad and Beautiful World"
by Sparklehorse continues]

[ominous booming]

[cars whooshing]
[engines revving]

- I like the tracks

when you can almost barely hear his voice,

but a feeling comes through,
["Maxine" by Sparklehorse]

and the feeling is so tender,

["Maxine" by Sparklehorse]

and in a way sad,

but sad beauty.

- You know, the reason I
think that his music appeals

to so many people is 'cause
it's just so genuine.

It's just really feels like
it's coming from inside of him.

It's completely honest.

It's almost confessional.

- It has that quality to it.
["Maxine" by Sparklehorse]

Not just that it sounds
sort of scratchy and old,

but that it's sort of
caught in two worlds,

and at times it's more in the present

and at times it's sort of stuck

in its own sort of temporal vortex.

- You know, he was a man that lived.

And he had a darkness to him,

and I don't mean that in a bad way,

but he did struggle with his own demons.

And I can hear that in his music.

I can hear that in the
awkward, creaky tones

and the rusty...

There's like a rusty feel to his music.

- [Narrator] Mark Linkous,

singer, songwriter, composer and founder

of the American alternative
rock band, Sparklehorse,

was hugely influential
and lauded by his peers.

["Maxine" by Sparklehorse continues]

Mark Linkous had a dramatic life.

[static crackling]

- [Mark] My parents split up

and they sent me to my
grandparents to live with,

'cause me and my brother
lived with my mom,

and she worked in a factory.

- We had a good time.

I mean, we rode a lot of dirt bikes,

and that's when Mark first
started to get into music.

I remember the first guitar he ever got.

My mom bought it for him.

You know, he had a really good,

more stable kind of deal
at my grandparents' house.

And those were my dad's parents,

and they were wonderful with him.

They were extremely close.

- [Mark] And my grandfather was...

He was a coal miner.

A couple people told me about him,

when they still used mules with carts

to haul the coal out of mines,

he got this really stubborn
mule that wouldn't move,

and he punched it in
the middle of the eyes

and it fell over dead.

He was very strict, but he
was very generous as well.

You know, I told him about this,
that I needed a new guitar,

and the next day he had three $100 bills

on the kitchen table for me.

"Or you must toil with
the pick on the drill"

"And sweat for your bread
in that hole in Oak Hill"

"That goes down, down, down"

"When I was a boy said my daddy to me"

"Stay out of the mines,
take my warnings said he"

"Or would just you be choked"

"And apart or you'll be broken down"

- [Mark] They would come
home from the deep mines

and just be...

Everything was black from the coal soot.

I knew I didn't wanna do that.

I thought that it would be a great way

to stay out of the mines if I tried music.

[projector clicking]

- [Narrator] Horse stories are
philosophers stones of sorts

for wayward Southern souls perhaps,

circle all around the little
things that need protecting.

The grandfather that cold
cocked a mule in the mines.

The animal would not move,
knocked it unconscious.

The same grandfather left you the cash

for a new guitar on a table.

Virginia stately, Virginia
cut over rural America,

full of drugs and religion.

- Well, I really got into punk.

You know, I had all the
original punk records,

all the Pistols records,
the Stranglers, the Damned,

all the Fall.

"Hold on"

"Turn it on, it's all on me"

"I wanna hold on"

- Tonight's Grammy Awards,

the air will be full of household names,

stars and superstars,

so why not we pay some
attention to representatives

of those many, many people
in the same business

as the Grammy nominees, but
not in the same spotlight.

Call it a look at some unsung singers.

A new group called Dancing Hoods

will be playing Kamikaze this Friday.

I say a new group called Dancing Hoods.

- Dancing Hoods, yeah.
[patrons chattering]

- Yeah.

Now, you can find the
work of Dancing Hoods

at the Upper West Side's Tower Records.

This is their LP, their first,

and hey, there's only one left.

However, I know where you
will not find them tonight.

You will not find them
3,000 miles that way

amidst the glamour of the Grammy Awards.

But I know you can find them,

in less splendid surroundings
about 25 miles that way.

["Baby's Got Rockets" by Dancing Hoods]

All four of the Hoods live
together in this house

in Merrick, Long Island.

Live together, create together,

and in a tiny basement chamber

at most any hour of the day
or night, play together.

"You're living in a cul-de-sac"

"Just another bad day by the way"

- [Dennis] So you live in squalor,

you never have any money. [laughs]

What are you doing this for?

What indeed?

Well, as you might expect from
young men living together,

sharing the same ideal

and not yet overwhelmed by success,

they're doing it because
it is their dream.

- There's nothing like playing

out in front of a bunch of people,

nothing like walking out onstage

and hearing people yell for you.

You know they're really there for you.

[upbeat rock music]

"It was for me"

- [Dennis] Of course, as
you might also expect,

they're all also doing
it because it's fun.

- Actually, I'm looking to
turn the heat on next winter.

[upbeat rock music]

- Suppose they made it,

I wonder how they'd sound
five years from now.

- I know they're very
idealistic at the moment,

God bless them.

- [Narrator] Already
musically accomplished

on so many levels,

guitar, songwriting, bandsmanship,

you came home to Virginia from LA,

following the end of the Dancing Hoods,

back from all the poodle rock

and the demons that
climbed your back there.

With an eight-track
board from David Lowery

and mostly self-taught,

you made an artifact
full of happy accidents.

You made sonic imperfection
a thing of glory.

You made
"Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot."

["Someday I Will Treat
You Good" by Sparklehorse]

["Rainmaker" by Sparklehorse]

"Rainmaker's coming"

"Rainmaker's coming"

[tape rewinding]

["Weird Sisters" by Sparklehorse]

"Parasites will love you"

"When you're dead"

"La la la, la la"

["Hammering the Cramps" by Sparklehorse]

"Hey, little dog"

"Can you fly"

[tape rewinding]
- Vivadixieswordfish...

Oh, I can't even remember how to say it.

- Vivadixie...

What is it?

- "Submarineplot."
- There you go. that one,

- When I saw the album title,

"Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot"

as one word, I thought,

"This sounds quite interesting." [laughs]

- So first time I heard it, I was like,

"Oh, my God, who is this, and what is it

and where is it coming from?"

[birds chirping]

- Okay, so this is the original location

of Sound of Music where the
first Sparklehorse record

was recorded with John
Morand and David Lowery.

- My role in that first "Vivadixie" record

was to be Mark's friend
and to be his supporter,

because I think he'd been kicking around,

like trying to be in bands.

He'd been to New York,
he'd been to Los Angeles,

he'd lived in Charlottesville,
which is, you know,

a college town, has a little music scene,

and Richmond has a music scene...

There were people who got him,

but I just felt like I just
needed to be his friend

and sit there with him

while we sort of discovered
what these songs should be.

["Spirit Ditch" by Sparklehorse]

"I want my records back"

"And that motorcycle gas tank"

"that I spray painted black"

- Mark and his brother played
in this band before that,

what were they called?

Salt Chunk Mary.

And they were more...

They were more thrashy and kind of louder

than what Sparkle...

Maybe like the more extreme rock stuff

that Sparklehorse has.

That's what Salt Chunk
Mary sounded like, right?

- He needed to get back to the
reason why he got into music

in the first place, you know?

You know, what inspired him in
the very beginning, you know?

And that's what did it, I think,

coming back here and just
being with, you know, friends,

you know, being with people
that he could really relate to

and really be himself.
[birds chirping]

- [Mark] After living in
New York and Los Angeles,

I just had to get...

You know, be away, be isolated,

you know, have some open spaces.

I've come to learn that the
holes and the silent parts

in music are very important.

It's really important for me to be able

to just make as much noise as I want

and not disturb other people,

especially having a recording studio.

I don't even like for my
wife to hear me singing.

- You know, we recorded this music

and then his wife had to go to bed

and it's kind of this small
house out in the country,

so he was sort of sketching out

what he wanted to sing and the words,

and he's singing really
quietly into this microphone.

So like, over the next few months,

like, whenever Mark could, you know,

record and stuff like that,

he started recording at night
and singing really soft.

And it was just sort of this revelation.

Like, he had these songs inside of him,

and he'd been sort of
singing them hard and loud,

maybe not like traditional rock,

but just harder and louder before.

But when he slowly unwrapped these songs

in a really quiet way and just
sort of gently let them out,

they became something entirely different

and they became their true selves, right?

And became more who he is

and how he spoke and who he was.

["Homecoming Queen" by Sparklehorse]

["Homecoming Queen" by
Sparklehorse continues]

["Homecoming Queen" by
Sparklehorse continues]

"A horse, a horse"

"My kingdom for a horse"

"Rattling on magnetic fields"

["Homecoming Queen" by
Sparklehorse continues]

"Yes, I did use up"

"The last box of sparklers"

"Before they went bad"

"Got wet or decayed"

"Homecoming queen"

"Homecoming queen"

- I thought it was completely amazing.

It just came right out of the blue for me,

and I totally loved it
and played it a lot.

Yeah, I thought it was remarkable.

I just...

It had so many elements from
so many worlds that I knew.

- I think my brother sort of described it

as like gothic country music in a way.

And it's very haunting and beautiful.

There are a lot of strange
biblical references as well.

- It's very dreamlike
and ethereal in places,

and yet there was random moments

of distorted ugliness

that I appreciate.

I liked the kinda way it
was sort of slightly schizo.

- [Mark] The way country
people, kinda being so isolated,

they have to kinda improvise

with things they have access to.

I always thought that was
a really admirable trait

of country people, you know?

I think that's why a lot of music is...

It seems really boring
and sterile to me now,

'cause a lot of it

just seems like most of
it's either being made in LA

or New York, and you have, you know,

a guy who's the engineer, that's his job,

or a producer, you know,
his job is a lot of times

to stand over the musicians and say...

Like standing over a painting
and saying, like, you know,

"Use green now."

- You know, I think the studio

was really like more
where he was comfortable,

rather than playing...

Playing live wasn't as appealing,

but it was something that he had to do.

With him, it was just like
getting all these elements,

like recording the band was one thing

and getting interesting sounds doing that.

And then it was just adding things,

just finding interesting things

maybe you wouldn't
associate with pop music,

but they're interesting sounds

and they were, to him, I think equal

and just the biggest part of the picture.

- His genius was that he was so good

at taking a mosaic approach

and allowing himself to just have a chorus

for a year [laughs] and
not do anything with it.

And he never strained himself
[laughs] in that respect.

- He used to have this shirt

and it was the slogan

for some sort of...

Like a plumbing company
or a construction company

or a chimney sweeping company
or something like that.

And the slogan was, "We may not be good,

but we sure are slow."

Right?

In a lot of ways, I always think of Mark,

and I think about that
slogan summing up, in a way,

his musical philosophy, right?

His attitudes towards art and everything.

He always loved all of
these broken things,

these kind of lo-fi things,

these songs that would be, you know,

like a Daniel Johnston
song, or a Skip Spence song

or a Departmentstore Santas songs...

These songs that were kind of like lo-fi,

a little bit broken.

Where everybody else was
playing fast in those days,

he and I started liking all
this slow music, you know?

So yeah, we may not be
good, but we sure are slow.

- [Mark] I was recording
some of my first record,

I was still a chimney sweep.

I had this wrong idea
that being a chimney sweep

was a very respected,
regal occupation to have.

And then I learned the
hard way that it wasn't.

If I wasn't able to articulate my feelings

into some type of art,
I think I would explode.

And yeah, that's the only
thing I know how to do, really.

["Saturday" by Sparklehorse]

"You are a sea of air"

"I play great keyboards"

"Of horses' teeth"

"On Saturday"

"On Saturday"

["Saturday" by Sparklehorse continues]

"I'd like to tell you"
- There were three albums

that were the main inspiration

for me starting as a solo artist,

and one was "Closing Time" by Tom Waits

and the other was...

I think it was "Bryter
Layter" by Nick Drake,

and the other one was
Sparklehorse's first record,

and I just played it to death.

- I think that first album,

it made quite a big wave, really.

I was sitting next to a young lady at work

who's, you know, just turning up 30,

so I've got more than 15 years on her,

and she was given a couple
of tracks from "Vivadixie"

on a lover's tape from her teens!

So you know, it reached far and wide.

["Good Morning Spider" by Sparklehorse]

- [Narrator] Then such an
unhappy accident would occur.

You were found on the floor
of a London hotel room,

following the critical success

you'd received for "Vivadixie,"

in terrible need of sleep.

Too much all at once,

you, a gentle introvert
playing arenas with Radiohead

and then the pills, the
drugs, trying to sleep.

You live to see what Frank
Stanford wrote about dying

in the poem you shared with
us, "The Light the Dead See."

He said, "The light grows, a white flower.

It becomes very intense, like music.

["Good Morning Spider" by
Sparklehorse continues]

[static crackling]

[ominous electronic music]

- [Mark] Well, someone
gave me a big bottle

of Mexican Valium,

and I guess I just had
been taking 'em real heavy

for a while.

That's one of the last things I remember.

I guess I just passed out,

and both my legs up underneath of me,

so they were kinda pinned up under me.

I guess the maid found me that morning

and the paramedics came
[static crackling]

and they pulled my legs out.

It releases from
circulation being cut off,

all this potassium builds up and that...

And the limbs that are cut off,

it goes through your heart
and gives you a heart attack.

[ominous electronic music continues]

But I guess it did kill me for
a few minutes or something.

[monitor beeping]

["Saint Mary" by Sparklehorse]

["Saint Mary" by Sparklehorse continues]

"Blanket me"

"Sweet nurse"

"And keep me from burning"

- And this song I wrote
about the sisters in America,

the sisters are nurses to the Americans,

specifically these two Irish
girls, Fiona and Aimer.

They just took really good
care of me in the hospital.

And to the extent

where they would come in on
their days off to check on me.

And I don't know, I
guess I've just always,

I felt like I needed to...

I mean, they saved my life there.

It wasn't just the sisters,

but the doctors really
were very compassionate

and that...

I don't know,

I just feel like I owe 'em,

'cause they literally saved my life.

- I just went and hung out
with him for a few days.

I mean, it was kind of crazy.

I mean, the first thing he did...

Well, the first moment that we had alone,

he said, "You have to kill me.

I can't live with this pain, you know?

Just unplug something."

You know, it's like,

"I'm [chuckles] not
going to do that, Mark."

It's pretty...

Pretty intense.

- But he had a tough time after that.

I mean, the recovery was extremely slow.

It was very, very painful.

He wanted to get back to what he does,

and he did as soon as he could.

I mean, that's when he was
working on "Good Morning Spider,"

and he did a lot of that
out of a wheelchair.

All of it, really, even toward...

From a wheelchair.
[melancholic classical music]

- [Narrator] But you persisted
after the operations.

It was as if our hero had
been thrown by his own horse.

And here to tell us about it,

from a great stoep of a concert stage

in a crumpled cowboy hat.

Despite your restriction to a wheelchair,

you once told me that as
long as Vic Chesnutt did it,

you knew you could do it.

Following multiple
operations on your legs,

you said you felt pressured

into finishing "Good
Morning Spider" too quickly

and that the collaborations
were too phoned in,

saying it was your least
favorite of all your records.

But it's now undisputed
that despite the adversity,

"Good Morning Spider" is
a document of resurrection

containing timeless pop songs
and every bit is wonderous

to to behold as "Vivadixie."

- [Mark] David Lowery,

he came to see me in
the hospital in London

and played a song for
me that I always loved.

And he left the guitar and
I think he forgot about it.

- I brought over a guitar

and also, at some point,

I went down the street and got him a Coke,

because they wouldn't give him a Coke.

And... [laughs]

"Well, if you won't kill
me, get me a Coke." [laughs]

[somber classical music]

- [Narrator] Following the accident,

Mark had to learn to live with disability.

His friend and fellow
musician, Vic Chesnutt,

served as a compass,

helping Mark navigate
the required adjustments

facing a disabled touring musician.

I think that Vic had weathered so much

and dealt so gracefully with people

and other musicians and situations

that musicians find themselves
in, and in a wheelchair,

and that Mark had Vic in his life,

you know, to sort of be someone
to blaze a trail for him

and not make him feel as odd, you know?

He made it seem doable.
["Painbirds" by Sparklehorse]

"Goddamn, it's so very hot"

"Supposed to come a rain, but it's not"

"Oh, yeah"

"Here come the painbirds"

"Oh, yeah"

"Here come the painbirds"

["Painbirds" by Sparklehorse continues]

- [Narrator] Walking wobbly,

you went to your brother Matt.

"I've gotta ride," you said,

your old Guzzi with the big nickel tank.

You couldn't find first gear,

so he leans down and taps it for you,

always an expert cyclist,
and you were off.

- [Mark] Well, it seems
like I was in a wheelchair

for a long time.

It made me be a little more
perceptive to small things,

you know, babies and animals and sex,

things like that.

"Shining motorcycle"

["All Night Home" by Sparklehorse]

"Through the trees we rifle"

"We're gonna drive all night home"

"We're gonna drive"
- I did a tour

and I played guitar with Joe Henry,

and a lot of the dates,

Sparklehorse opened for Joe Henry.

And that was kind of right
after Mark's accident,

where his legs...

You know, where he fell
asleep on his legs.

And so he was playing...

The first time I saw 'em,

and he was playing in
the wheelchair and stuff,

and it was just, like,

this was really touching
and beautiful music.

- Yeah, I mean, that was
the time period, you know?

It was, you know, Flaming Lips,

although they had more of a
built-in producer studio guy

who was working with them.

There was a lot of us who
are more kind of soloists

who were attempting to
create these little worlds,

these magical worlds,

and sort of get out of
the confines of, you know,

scratchy, crappy, cassette recording.

- A common hue between many of the groups

that, you know, might be in
the same sentence together,

or breath, you know, whether it was Rev

or Sparklehorse or Flaming
Lips and Grandaddy,

and I would be hesitant
to just stop there.

I think there was a lot.

I don't know if it was a...

I can't say from my point it
was ever a conscious effort

to say, "This is the street that I live on

amidst these other houses

and these are the only other
kids that I play well with."

And I don't think they would either.

- I think where Mark and I both ended up

was having an appreciation for, you know,

the dirty little nasty
and the gritty stuff,

but just like trying to
achieve this overall balance

with like, you know, the lush cinematic

and the beautiful stuff and combine them,

and I think that we were
treading on that same path.

"He smashed into the cemetery gates"

["Happy Man" by Sparklehorse]

"All I want is to be a happy man"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

["Happy Man" by Sparklehorse continues]

["It's a Wonderful Life" by Sparklehorse]

["It's a Wonderful Life"
by Sparklehorse continues]

"It's a wonderful life"

"It's a wonderful life"

["It's a Wonderful Life"
by Sparklehorse continues]

- [Narrator] Having gained a reputation

for unparalleled DIY
workmanship and invention,

and despite your professed
difficulty with words,

you dealt a now chemical
stroke of timelessness

with your next effort.

This album would be considered by many

the apex of your career.

An assemblage of pure
Mark Linkous aesthetic

was presented to the world

under the shell-shocked and
soot black halo of 9/11.

["It's a Wonderful Life"
by Sparklehorse continues]

- I know my tastes aren't
necessarily mainstream,

I don't care about that.

I just think I can tell good from bad,

and "It's a Wonderful
Life" is a masterpiece

and it stands up there with...

I mean, masterpiece is an overused term,

genius is an overused term as well,

but I think it's a masterpiece.

["Piano Fire" by Sparklehorse]

"I got sunburnt waiting
for the jets to land"

- I remember being in the studio

and my wife, Michelle, called and said,

"Oh, John, you're gonna be
really excited to hear this.

Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse called,

and he wants you to call him back,

and you call him back

when you come out of the studio tonight."

And so I think, "Wow, great!"

I mean, you know, I expect
he's called to ask me

to produce, you know?

Why else would he call me out of the blue?

And you know, we chatted a little while

and I was thinking, "Well,
okay, when's he gonna ask me?"

And then he just said,

"John, I wanted to ask you something."

And I was like, "Okay, great."

And he said, "I wanted to
see if you could recommend

any studios where I might
be able to work." [laughs]

And I was like, "Oh, that's..."

So I kind of recovered, tried
to hide my disappointment

and mentioned a couple.

And I said, "Oh yeah,
by the way, you know,

there's a particular studio in
Amsterdam I'm gonna recommend

'cause I've just finished
making a record there."

And he said, "Oh, so
you were you making...

What, was it one of your records?"

And I said, "No, I was
producing a band over there."

And he said, "Oh, do you produce records?"

[John chuckling]

And so I said, "Yeah."

So he said, a little pause,

"Would you be interested in
producing something for me?"

[John laughing]

And so I said, "Yes." [laughs]

Thinking, "I thought that
was why we were gonna have

this conversation in the beginning."

And you know, I'm never
quite sure with Mark,

having known him now, knowing
his dry sense of humor,

I wonder if that was some
kind of weird joke, or...

I mean, I'll never know.

- [Narrator] Your peers
would heed the call

when you said you didn't
wanna play every instrument

on every song,

and that you wanted other people's brains

and input involved.

Enter John Parish, Alan Weatherhead,

Adrian Utley, Dave Fridmann, Nina Persson,

Tom Waits, PJ Harvey and others.

- Well, all the people
that I've worked with

or collaborated with, I've always...

I was fans of their music
before I ever met 'em, you know?

I was a huge Portishead fan
before I ever met Adrian,

you know, and now we're great friends.

And the same with Tom Waits, you know?

His records, especially his later records,

starting with like the Island ones,

with "Rain Dogs" and
"Swordfish" and "Bone Machine,"

all that.

I just love the sound of
those records so much,

and it's still hard for me to comprehend

the fact that, you know,
we were on record together,

that he sings lead vocals
on a Sparklehorse album.

["Dog Door" by Sparklehorse]

"Well, she's as mean as a needle"

"Don't get too close to the heater"

"Like a mean shopkeeper
who got an extra gun"

"She about six-foot-four,
and she's a wrecking ball"

- I was slightly nervous

about actually what I was
going to be able to contribute.

But of course, you know,
when you get in the studio,

you start working with things, it's not...

The lines are very much
more blurred, you know?

You know, I might have played
some instruments or whatever,

or suggested different things,

and it's not producer sits in the chair,

artist, you know, goes in the studio

and performs or whatever.

It's a much more fluid situation.

- When I was working with him,
John Parish was producing,

but John's not a bombastic man

about, you know, he won't...

He's not like Phil Spector
who tells you what to do,

I imagine, you know?

So it was very much...

From my side of it,

it was seemed a very good collaboration.

And Mark was very clear
often about what he wanted

and his sounds and stuff,

but very, very open to working with

the people that he'd
surrounded himself with.

- I remember the beginning of one day,

he seemed so down when
I arrived at the studio.

And I mean, I'm not one
of those kind of producers

that kind of, you know,
jivvies everybody up

and like, "Come on!"

You know, that's not really my...

I'm not comfortable working in that way.

And I thought,

"Well, how are we gonna
do something today?

It seems like he's so despondent

that he just can't see
that there's any worth

in what he's doing."

But he had, you know, a couple of chords,

and he was kind of messing
around a little bit

with this guitar part.

And I sort of said, "Well,
those chords are really nice.

Those chords are great.

Can we do something with them?"

And he sorta almost said,

"Well, you know, see if you
can do something with them,

you know, because I don't know what...

I try, you know..."

And just kind of dismissed it.

And so I sort of messed around
with the chords a little bit,

didn't change 'em at all, you know?

They were absolutely...
["Gold Day" by Sparklehorse]

It was a great chord sequence

and it was the chord sequence
for the song "Gold Day"

from "It's a Wonderful Life."

And I, you know, recorded some bass

and we managed to cut a drum
track and a guitar track.

And by about halfway through the day,

I could see that he was kind
of getting a sense of the song.

And then by sort of halfway
through the afternoon,

he put down that beautiful vocal.

And by the end of the day,

he was so excited and so happy,

and for me, that was the
best day of the session.

'Cause I thought, "Wow, you
know, there is that power

within his music that even
despite himself, you know,

he can pull himself out
from such a dark place

with the beauty of what he's doing.

"In silver piles of smiles"

"May all your days be gold, my child"

"May all your days be gold, my child"

"May all your days be gold"

- I think they'd been working before.

And I got there and there
was John Parish Scott,

who played drums, and
fantastic samples and stuff.

And Polly Harvey was there
for the whole period,

and John and me and Mark, and
we could swap instruments,

and it was really...

It was really nice.

And he was so, you know, self-effacing

and kind of humble when we met, you know?

[engine revving]

["More Yellow Birds" by Sparklehorse]

- He indulged me with the
inspiration behind certain songs.

and I asked him,

where in the world did the idea

for "More Yellow Birds come from?

Is it literal?

How did that come to you?"

'Cause it's one of my
favorite images in his work.

And he said there was, in fact, someone,

I think in England or somewhere in Europe,

that, after his accident,

just kept sending him
these little fake canaries,

these little fake gold trenches.

And they would really just cheer him up.

He'd open up the mail one day

and he'd literally have more yellow birds.

"Please send me more yellow birds"

"For the dim interior"

- We recorded the song
"More Yellow Birds,"

which is kind of different.

It's sort of an anomaly on that record.

It's just kind of
different from everything

and it's a different set of musicians.

We just did that in the
studio here in Richmond,

pretty simply, we recorded it live.

I think what he did for
a lot of that record

is he would record the guitar
and then take the guitar away,

so that's what happened on that song.

Usually things we would
work on take a long time.

It was a lot of tracks
and sifting through 'em.

And this was really like a couple takes,

a couple overdubs,

and then he just sang it once,

like, that's the only
vocal we ever did on it.

["Sea of Teeth" by Sparklehorse]

"For the love we had"

"In some ways, feeling sad"

- The first thing I asked him

is, "How do you write the songs?

How do you actually do it?

Do you sit down with a drum track?"

'Cause I know he's used
drum machines in the past,

or maybe you have a little guitar riff

or something and build it together.

"Or do you have something in your head

that you have to lay down?"

And it was really fast.

"No, it's in my head."

I said, "The whole thing is in your head?"

And he says, "Yeah, the
whole thing, all the time,

is in my head, and then I have
to try and make it happen."

And with varying degrees of success,

I guess it depends on
who he's working with,

where he is working and so on.

He asked me what's my favorite song.

And I said, "Oh, it
changes on a daily basis,

but the most supreme
example of your work for me

is "Sea of Teeth" from
"It's a Wonderful Life."

It's just poetic.

It's not so much about death
for a change, but supreme love.

And he just went, "Great,
that's my favorite song too,"

and he explained that that

is because the song that
he heard in his head,

he nailed down.

That was the closest he got

to nailing down the sounds
he heard in his head.

[projector clicking]
[typewriter clicking]

["Maxine" by Sparklehorse]

- [Narrator] To a limb of gauzy clouds,

breathe ancient dark slopes,

gradually yielding to the day.

You made an escape to
the Southern Highlands

of the Great Smoky Mountains,

a place of communion with salamanders,

but also of hungry ghosts.

["Maxine" by Sparklehorse continues]

For all your previous
inventive propulsions

and gasoline horsies and
the company's anticipation

of your next Sparklehorse album,

you hadn't escaped the mines at all.

- I've lived in New York and Los Angeles,

and when I returned to the South,

I just decided that I wanted
to live in the country, so...

[birds chirping]

And Virginia was fairly isolated,

and where I've moved to now is...

Literally, it's on top of a
mountain in the Smoky Mountains

in North Carolina, and it's...

I mean, it's so high up that the clouds

are sometimes under me.

And there's bears,

and I've actually been trapped
in the house by a bear.

One time I couldn't go to my studio,

'cause there was a bear in my truck.

["Mountains" by Sparklehorse]

"Once I was a big old bear"

"Reigning blows on sparkly snares"

"In the woods after the snow"

"The white noise witch,
her hammer's cold"

- I mean, North Carolina,
it's a big state.

It's the southern, southern
tip in the Smoky Mountains,

right on the border of Georgia,

about two hours from Asheville, which...

Asheville's already in
the middle of nowhere,

but it's the only airport
in western North Carolina.

So you fly into Asheville,

Theresa, his wife came and picked me up,

and you drive through the
most beautiful mountain range

you've ever seen in your life.

And he lived up in these mountains,

I mean, he literally lived
in the middle of nowhere.

I mean, it took...

Yeah, it was a trek to
get there, you know?

You live with bears and rattlesnakes.

- Well, the times that I was
ever in the cabin with Mark

were social times, and
socializing with Mark,

it was just as sublime as
listening to his music,

in other ways.
[birds chirping]

Listening to LPs like
crazy, old random selections

from his album collection was among...

Just really, the more
fun moments of my life.

[birds chirping]

- It seemed like in
Virginia that, you know,

I don't know if it was a
product of the world changing,

but it seemed like the land
was drying up a little bit.

And this spot in North Carolina

was almost this valley that was untouched.

And it almost had its own...

Well, I guess it sort of does
have its own weather system,

where it rains almost every
day, but then it'll stop,

the sun will come out

and you can just sort of smell the soil.

And there's lots of water.
[birds chirping]

There's creeks and rivers everywhere.

And you know, it's nice,

but it can be dangerous too,

'cause sometimes I get
to where I don't come off

the top of the mountain
for too long, you know?

I get to where I just don't want...

I don't wanna leave.

And that's one of the
reasons it took five years

between "It's a Wonderful
Life" and this record.

- [Narrator] From a hidden storefront

in the tiny North Carolina town,

a cavern gleaning veins of lyricism

from water-worn, tired mountains

existing long before words
on the mouths of man.

The outside world was
the blinding overburden

where you'd tipple and haunt
your way with the obvious mark

of one who'd gone as dark
as any had gone before.

["Return to Me" by Sparklehorse]

Your haulage was stunning gems,

whole worlds sourced from unsung rooms,

amalgams of unreachable ore
from beneath the tonnage.

Ionically charged by the Appalachians,

this wide-ranging LP would comprise

your most lyrical and romantic effort yet,

music indeed dreamt for light years

in the belly of a mountain.

"With tears from me"

- You know, like anyone
who gets on a stage

and performs their music,

they have a desire to be acknowledged.

At the same time, he's still
making music for himself.

He wasn't making it for anyone else, so...

I think, you know, he also
was a great producer as well,

and he was also involved

in so many different little projects.

So he kept himself busy, probably
'cause he had to, I think.

- So you're at 2 Locust Street
in Andrews, North Carolina,

where you get the sort
of Bavarian revival,

tourist-geared vernacular architecture.

This door is the door of Static King.

Behind me is

where Mark's sort of
mechanic's tinker shop was.

It was like stepping
into something like LA,

or some fantastic wonderland
to step into his studio.

It was like...

I've often called him sort
of the backwoods Willy Wonka.

[traffic whooshing]

- You know, for a while,
in the last five years,

I wasn't really producing much,

so people, including my manager,

would send me CDs that I think, you know,

they thought might be inspiring,

or someone that I might
want to collaborate with.

And she sent me "The Grey Album,"

and I just loved that, you know?

'Cause I was listening to a
lot of Beatles at the time,

and I was huge Beatles
fan and I liked Jay-Z too,

so it was a great...

You know, I got that at the perfect time.

- [Narrator] While the
mountain range insulated you,

the human world around
you left you wanting,

and you had to import your peers.

With spotty cell phone service
and an often broken laptop,

you were painfully
propagating your fourth album,

while at once managing
to grow your alliance

with Brian Burton, AKA Danger Mouse.

He'd come from LA to support you

and make propitious
contributions to the effort

in your mountain studio,

where you both bought piles of LPs

at one of the most remote
record shops in the nation.

But the birth of these dreams
would be difficult at best.

Sometimes sleeping in the dank studio

on a decaying velvet sofa,

you were indeed dealing in death,

birth and every love and loss in between.

- There was one time I was
signed with Virgin Records,

and I had written this
song when I was very young

and they wanted me to put it on the album,

'cause they thought it was a single,

and I felt really uncomfortable about it.

And I needed somebody to back me up,

because they were giving
me a lot of grief.

And I rang Mark up, and I was just saying,

"You know what, they're trying to get me

to put this song on
the album and you know,

I don't relate to it
anymore and it's whatever."

And he said, "You know, you caught me.

I'm trying to fix the brakes on my car

and I can't afford to fix them.

So you wrote that song
at one point in your life

and it meant something to you.

So put it on the bloody
album, you know, stand by...

It's your song.

No one forced you to write it.

You wrote that song, so
have a little bit of respect

for your music, because,"
you know, he goes,

"When I was younger, I said
no to a lot of things."

"And for songs that I
had written," he goes,

"and today I can't afford to
fix the brakes on my car."

- It's still hard to make ends meet,

you know, financially, sometimes.

And that's what I think of,

and I wish that I'd sold
more records in America,

or just sold more records in general,

just to make, you know...

I've had these boots now for three years.

I'd like to... [laughs]

It's about time to get
a new pair of Red Wings.

[somber classical music]

- [Angela] I think that he was, in part,

a casualty of the things that are wrong

with the music industry.

I resent the industry.

- I can't imagine how someone would...

And I'm saying this
from a place of sympathy

at a record label,

how to best present a
band like Sparklehorse.

How do you...

I mean, that's always been
a problem for us as well.

It's like, you're doing
something that's...

It's just you, it's just,
you know, it's Mark and Scott

and it's...

[somber classical music continues]

There isn't a whole lot of
room there to sparkle that up,

to make it more appealing
and to market it.

And yet, people really enjoy it.

- I don't get the sense
that he craved fame.

I think he deserved a lot more

than he got in his lifetime,

you know, perhaps financially

and just overall recognition.

- I remember being utterly shocked

that someone that had
created these four albums

lived in a four-room cabin

hanging off the side of
the mountain, you know?

And I remember being shocked that his cars

were often in a state of disrepair

and that he had to do tours

that he probably wasn't
physically up to doing at times,

just because it would...

You know, he would get
some decent pay for it.

[somber classical music continues]

- He talks a lot about
being filled with things

that are either dead,

or things that he can't
get out of him, you know?

And it's really beautiful
and it's intense.

And Mark was...

He was beautiful and he was intense

and he was...

A lot of people, I feel,
in life have, you know,

a wall to protect themselves,
and he never had that.

And I think sometimes
it's the purest people

that get led astray.

- You know, he was so sensitive, God!

I mean, I've never met anyone...

Almost never met anyone
as sensitive as him.

- I got taken to a child psychiatrist,

'cause I would freak out every time

I got taken to get my hair cut.

So at one point, they
locked me in the car,

and I kicked the windows out of the car,

and my parents took me
to a child psychiatrist.

And I was like, "I just
wanna have long hair

like Alice Cooper, you know?"

["Revenge feat. The Flaming
Lips" by Sparklehorse]

"Pain"

"I guess it's a matter of sensation"

"But somehow"

"You have a way of avoiding it all"

"In my mind"

"I have shot you and stabbed
you through your heart"

"I just didn't understand"

"The ricochet is the second"

- [Narrator] In 2009,

Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse embarked

on an ambitious project
to fuse their talents

with songs portrayed by a handpicked array

of lead vocalists.

It would become, in Mark's time,

the last Sparklehorse album
to see the light of day,

"Dark Night of the Soul."

["Little Girl" by Danger
Mouse and Sparklehorse]

- We have some tracks
that we're working on,

and I would like for it to
have different vocalists,

if I could, almost like R and
B records and hip-hop records

often have different guest
lead vocalists for songs.

- I found out that him and Brian,

Danger Mouse, were
making an album together,

and I actually hung out with Brian.

["Jaykub" by Danger
Mouse and Sparklehorse]

It turns out that he
was a big Grandaddy fan,

which was really cool.

The idea was to ask all
these different singers

and songwriters to help
contribute, and I was asked,

and by some weird stroke of luck,

I got two songs on the album.

["Jaykub" by Danger Mouse
and Sparklehorse continues]

"Jaykub"

"It's time for you to wake up"

"And accept your awards"

"Inside"

- [Narrator] In this project,

you found sweet relief

in avoiding the chore of
lead vocals altogether,

which would also allow you to
flex your perspective range

as a songwriter,

by appointing the singers
as if by casting call.

And not only would your
mutual hero, David Lynch,

provide the original photography

for the limited edition book package,

he'd also make his vocal
debut on two tracks.

["Dark Night of the Soul" by
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse]

"All alone"

- We were at the Static King,

and Mark surprised us
with David Lynch mixes

coming out of his gear.

And he said, "Do you know who this is?"

And Mark said, "Listen, listen to this.

And it was "Star Eyes"

and it was just the most beautiful thing,

and all of us loving David
Lynch to the extent we did,

and it's just that I could tell
it's a really hopeful thing

for Mark, because he was seeking
David Lynch's mentorship.

["Star Eyes feat. David Lynch"
by Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse]

- He came a couple of
times here to the studio.

He sat right in that chair right there.

And I lived in Virginia for four years.

I went to high school in Virginia.

Dean, who is the engineer
here, lived in Virginia,

grew up in Virginia and
Sparklehorse's in Virginia.

And we would talk, and
I would drink red wine

and Sparklehorse, I forget
what kinda drink he had,

but it was more like a
bourbon or a whiskey.

- In all my years there,
I never saw him...

Like, he really bonded with Mark

in his brief, short amount
of time that he knew him.

Like, just the way he
looked and talked with Mark

was unlike anyone else I'd seen,

And I felt like they were
both cut from a similar cloth,

but there was something about Mark

that David really instantly
went from zero to 100

on the friend level, because
he just, either A, got Mark,

liked him, understood him
and wanted to help him...

- There's a few people like this,

where you don't really need to talk.

You just sit and then something comes up

and you talk about things.

And because Dean was here,

we talked a lot about equipment

and then we'd talk about
life in general, and...

But he was just so great to sit with

and have a drink with.

And Sparklehorse hadn't
been doing anything,

so Danger Mouse wanted to go out

and, you know, kinda
light a fire under him.

And he wanted me to do still photographs.

Not a video, but stills.

And I thought that was a cool concept.

He got me all these tracks and I said,

"If I listen to it and I
get ideas for pictures,

then we'll go."

- It was like a gallery show
where they were premiering,

you know, the photos, they
had the music on loop.

It was at Michael Kohn Gallery in LA.

It's sort of really indicative

of the kind of person he was,

'cause here is this pretty
big, you know, unveiling

of this, you know, multifaceted work

with kind of thick imagery

and amazing, cinematic songs

from artists all over the map

in terms of the recording industry.

And at the party, there
was, like, Hollywood types.

I mean, I think Rick Rubin was there,

Flea, Crispin Glover,

like just bizarre tapestry of individuals.

But this whole party's going
on and I stepped outside,

and it's Mark sitting
by himself on the curb,

you know, like completely
fish out of water,

uncomfortable, like, anxiety-ridden.

And he's just sitting there by himself.

- You know, you felt this vulnerability

and not a lot of self-worth,
you know, feeling, and...

Which was really sad.

["Star Eyes feat. David Lynch"
by Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse]

"Mine"

"Star"

- The ringtone is the opening measure

of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir."

It's a call from Brian Burton.

The collaboration with
Danger Mouse and Lynch

wasn't going to be released as planned,

due to a dispute with EMI.

Burton decided to go ahead
and release it as a CD

with no content, a statement,
a thumb in the eye,

a defiant mirror held up
to the music industry.

Your respect for Brian so immense,

you responded with Pluck.

- [Brian] You know, there's
a beautiful companion piece,

the book which came out,

and when that originally came out,

it was accompanied by two CD-Rs, correct?

Like, blank discs.

There was one...

There was one CD-R that
came in in the back of it.

You know, I can't get into
too many of the details

about the legalities of
exactly what happened,

but you know, since there
were two very strong elements,

the goal would've been

to have them both
coincide with each other,

both through a book and
also through a gallery,

which is something that
we eventually put together

and got to show.

It just happened that
the music being released

and the book and the gallery thing

didn't work out in the right time.

They didn't, you know,
for a lot of reasons.

I wish they had,

and through my wishing they had,

I guess that's why the CD-R
was in there and was blank.

You know, that's about as
much as I can say, you know?

We had a goal, we didn't
quite get there...

- [Narrator] Getting
signed to Anti- records

to record your own next album,

occasionally gigging,

travels beyond the mountains
became more frequent,

traversing the Great Smokys on your bike,

or in your old black Benz,

toward Knoxville.

Unmooring from your marriage,

separation growing,

soon the riveting miles
would begin to fray

over the jutting and yawning cracks

between your mountain cabin
and a new life in Knoxville.

[ominous bell ringing]
[static crackling]

The Christmas-time loss of
Vic Chesnutt was a deep blow,

your affinity for him, almost religious.

His songwriting,

your mutual and
not-too-dissimilar afflictions.

You said as long as he
could do it, you could.

But Vic had announced to the world

that autumn that the
hospitals, the pain, the bills,

all of it was too much.

And not a week into that faded winter,

he would succeed in taking his life.

- I have a house in Athens, Georgia,

and he's my...

You know, his wife still lives behind me.

He lived behind me when Vic died.

I saw them take him out to...

When he was dying,

I saw them take him out to the ambulance.

The first thing I knew that I had to do

was to call Mark and tell him.

And I knew he wasn't gonna take it well.

- He was very strong and
didn't really open up to me

on the phone about Vic
and what had happened,

but he did say to me that,
"I always felt all right

as long as Vic was around."

And he was able to do it...

He spoke to that effect about it.

So it was almost sort of,

wow, someone that really
helped him with his bearings,

and the fact that Mark
suffered with chronic pain

and still wore braces to
be able to walk properly,

Vic was crucial.

A crucial friend, you know, an ally.

- Mark was not in a good place.

He was out in the Smoky Mountains.

He was kind of living in his studio.

He might've been in Knoxville,
I wasn't really sure,

but I thought maybe he was...

He was definitely drinking again,

which he did off and on,
but I wasn't really sure.

But I thought maybe there
was some drug issues again...

I didn't really know.

He just seemed like he was in a bad place.

- The thing about Mark is that
sometimes he would disappear

off the radar, you know?

And I might get in touch
with Scott or someone

and see how he's going and stuff.

So I was never that worried.

You know, he'd bob up again.

- There was such a strong connection

between the two of them.

I really worried when
that broke, when Vic died,

that this was just gonna
affect Mark in a bad way,

and it...

I think, unfortunately,

it turned out that set him
into a spiral downward.

["Devil's New" by Sparklehorse]

["Devil's New" by Sparklehorse continues]

- [Narrator] When we
put ourselves prostrate

before our muse, other
things can walk over us.

When pain and the seeking to
end that pain enter the room,

we can be cornered, compressed,

and thus a selection of
limited outcomes are sought.

["Devil's New" by Sparklehorse continues]

From within this narrow corridor,

a life of choosing just the right sound,

the perfect words for this melody,

the hook, the economy of a
two-and-a-half-minute pop song,

a gut punch,

where determinations are made

to occupy a land finally devoid

of the witches of white noise.

["Devil's New" by Sparklehorse continues]

We know from the study of ballistics

that the line of sight is
placed according to bullet rise,

and that there are
particular circumstances

when point-blank range makes sense,

given a host of variables:

Muzzle velocity, gravity...

The morning was cold, drear.

March the 6th.

Glaring at your friend's
hard-from-behind, disdainful eyes,

and with a gun beneath your black coat,

in the middle of uprooting your studio,

your persistent chest
cold, the imminent divorce,

the unfastening from your
mountains, the loss of Vic,

the pain and new album to launch,

you walked to the alley outside the house

to do what Frank Stanford did,

what Breece D'J Pancake did.

["Devil's New" by Sparklehorse continues]

And Vic now gone, you sought release,

a lone robin on a limb beyond
the alley of notifiers.

With feather vestments,
under a Knoxville skyline,

you took your own leave.

["Devil's New" by Sparklehorse continues]

If you could have at
once embraced the howling

and filtered the human, the
region held great promise,

but it was the human howl that
haunted you into the deed.

What is important about your leave

is that you showed us all

that no matter how well a
person appears to be doing,

or how badly they appear to be doing,

that you never know when a
tear will appear in the fabric

that keeps us all on this land together.

However much a person carries
on and gets on with it,

you never, ever know when
the last day will arrive,

that either we learn to treat each other

like it's the last time
we'll hear their voice,

or we don't.

[melancholic classical music]

[melancholic classical music continues]

- I guess I find it hard to separate,

knowing Mark, from the sounds.

Sometimes when you meet artists
and then hear their music,

or one comes before the other,

it's quite easy to dissociate
the sounds you hear

from the person that you meet.

That wasn't so easy with Mark.

[melancholic classical music continues]

Well, a strange thing happened

that I got a text message
from him and he said,

"I'm gonna miss you," or "Miss you."

And this was about a day
before, two days before...

"Miss you."

"I'm gonna miss you."

It was one of those two things,

and I thought it was odd,
'cause I thought maybe...

Well, maybe he had just sent it,

it was meant to go to somebody else.

I don't know.

So I sort of pushed it
off a bit as just like,

"Okay, he hit the wrong
button or something."

[melancholic classical music continues]

And then I got a call early in the morning

from someone very far away, and it says,

"I'm very sorry about your friend."

And it took a nanosecond

to know who they were talking about.

It was less than...

It was even less than that.

It was just immediately,
it came to me that Mark,

it was Mark.

And when Vic Chesnutt died,

it really muddied the
waters inside of Mark,

made 'em all turbulent
and really hard to see.

And he was quite torn up about it

in the way that he spoke with me.

And there was a bit of anger...

There was more than a bit,

there was anger there at what he perceived

was a world sort of gone wrong,

at least around Vic.

And he felt very akin to what he perceived

was Vic's own feeling of helplessness,

that whatever Mark had
gleaned from that situation,

from that event,

really began to rip at
the internal parts of him.

- You know, the thing about Mark

is he was all heart, you know?

And that even comes back to the whole idea

of him not having that defense, that wall,

to be able to say,

you know, fuck you to the world, you know?

He just had this openness.

His heart was open, always,

and that sometimes served him,

and sometimes, it meant
that he felt everything.

You know, there was no filter.

He felt everything.

And I could imagine that his pain

was centered in his heart, you know?

And the fact that he sings
so much about the heart

and about being filled
with stuff, you know,

sometimes dead stuff.

- He was one of those
peculiar beings that...

Almost like a radio program from the past,

Like, "The Shadow knows!"

That comes in and out to you at points,

and at times, it sounds real familiar,

and at times, it disappears and is...

It's almost like he, at times,

had trouble fully materializing on Earth,

and there was always
this other part of him

that just couldn't quite
make some sort of a jump

to fully be here.

There was always this other part of him

that seemed very ghost-like,

and I think he wrestled
with it in some ways.

I think you can hear it,
sometimes, in the songs

and the music and the voice.

Comes in and out,

almost like when you go
into some crazy old house

and you think you smell perfume

that hasn't been there in 100 years.

- I had this weird thing
happen where, the day before...

I know this does sound very weird,

but the day before he died,

I had been in town, in Dublin,

and I'd passed a venue, and
I looked up at the window,

the top left-hand corner window,

where the two of us had sat...

We weren't allowed to smoke in this room,

so we had with the window open

and we were smoking out the window,

and it was kinda where the
two of us really connected.

And I was looking up at that window

and I hadn't thought about
him for quite some time.

And I looked up at that window

and I just had a really vivid memory,

to the point where I just could see him

and smell him and everything.

It was really strong, really,
really strong, the day before.

- You know, he was sick, he had a disease,

he suffered from depression.

It's a disease.

I don't know if it would've
gone that way anyway, you know?

I mean, you know, I actually
really question that,

you know, a lot of it is just the fact

that we don't really have the
sort of same healthcare system

that the rest of the world has,

and especially with mental health,

that he was just never
really treated properly.

When he was in periods
when he didn't have money,

like, during that period,

he was completely functioning untreated,

suffering from severe depression.

He was reclusive anyway.

You know, people kinda come to help him,

moved him down to Knoxville
to live with a friend

and everybody...

I know that his brother, at least,

sort of thought that, you
know, some sense of relief.

"Okay, all right, we got him
sort of back in civilization.

He's not out in the middle of nowhere.

He's around people where he can get help.

He's, you know, living with somebody

and you know, this should
help maybe get him out

of his downward spiral."

So I was actually really
surprised when I found out

that he had shot himself,

because I thought he
was on his way up again.

It seemed like he had got...

I was sort of relieved, right?

- But what was so terrible

about what he was going through

is he was being hit by not
one, not two, not three,

but a handful of things,
major life stressors, at once.

He'd just lost a dear friend,

you know, less than three months prior,

he was in the middle of
moving not just his home,

but his studio,

to a city, from a extremely
rural, isolated existence,

into a bustling Southern city, you know?

He was making new friends.

He was embarking on a new album

that he was almost finished with.

I think that Mark was very...

With hindsight, I understand more and more

that Mark was really, really

under a tremendous amount of stress

that would buckle the best of us,

the toughest of the lot.

Mark was tough.

- He would be really honest with me.

I mean, we would talk...

You know, we talked about suicide,

we talked about depression,
we talked about these things.

You know, we talked
about his battles openly,

him and I, and we talked
about it with Melissa as well,

very honest.

We were very close.

And he told me it was tough
and he told me it was hard,

but I was just trying to
be supportive, you know,

in whatever I could do,

trying to think of anything
that could help, you know?

And then I got that call on a Saturday.

["Morning Hollow" by Sparklehorse]

- [Narrator] There is a consensus
among those who knew him

that they will never know
another person as rare as Mark.

His spectral bearing lent a
magic to his diamond-hard focus

and creative determination.

It's tempting to lump Mark's fall

into so many sordid and
tabloid-worthy tales

on the indulgence of failed relationships,

addictions, suicide and
the melancholia intrinsic

to those who are in the
business of feeling things.

But that would absolve us of
our own duty to ourselves,

for within each of us is that opening,

within each of us is a soul
that cobbles together images

to tell our own unique stories,

no matter how broken we may be.

How we take care of that is the trick,

and the care and grooming
of the creative cause.

It has to go somewhere.

By fastening yourself to yours,

you avoid tearing it away
from those around you.

What are you tethered to?

Does it help you with your chains?

For within each of us is
a bit of Sparklehorse.

["Morning Hollow" by
Sparklehorse continues]

- [Gemma] He's left a
huge hole in my heart.

- [Ed] He left us all
this beautiful music.

- [John] His music exists
in the world forever

and his work...

- [Adrian] Like many
great artists before him,

people will discover his music.

- [Matthew] Subsequent
generations of listeners

will come across these records
and find something amazing.

- [Matt] Just, yeah, he put some love

and some beauty into this world.

- [Narrator] These distillations
of sound between the dials,

the speaking valves,

the fields of sonic
elation were your homage.

The mutant, the dross of our universe,

you put them together,
this was your offering.

The unsung, broken but still
smiling, discarded toys

of our collective pasts.

It is a hard world for little things.

Polish is to be despised,

in a glaring, shiny world,

the recesses, the unloved, the cast off,

this is your dominion.

This is Sparklehorse.

["Morning Hollow" by
Sparklehorse continues]

["Chaos of the Galaxy /
Happy Man" by Sparklehorse]

"More would be laid at your feet"

"If you give me"

"Just a little smile"

"The dogs on my trail
wouldn't drag me back to jail"

"I woke up in a horse's
stomach upon a foggy morning"

"His eyes were crazy and he
smashed into the cemetery gates"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

"I've seen teeth across the horizon"

"Fangs spanning yellow
against the earth"

["Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy
Man" by Sparklehorse continues]

"And if"

"I woke up in a horse's
stomach upon a foggy morning"

"His eyes were crazy and he
smashed into the cemetery gates"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

["Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy
Man" by Sparklehorse continues]

"I woke up in a horse's
stomach upon a foggy morning"

"His eyes were crazy and he
smashed into the cemetery gates"

"And all I want is to be a happy man"

"And all I want is to be a happy man"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

"All I want is to be a happy man"

"All I want"

"All I want"

"All I want"

"All I want"

["Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy
Man" by Sparklehorse continues]

["Eons" by Jake Hiorns]

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