I want to start by talking about the album that this single is taken from, Brennan Gilmore’s debut, which will be out in a few weeks. Whilst stationed in South Sudan, Gilmore saw the words “My Name is Daniel Leek” scrawled on the wall of a refugee shelter, a moment in time, a fragment of a person’s life, the signature of someone he would never meet or know anything about. And from this, he decided to write a song cycle of the same title, an album that sums up his experiences in often the most volatile regions of Africa.
“Why There’s Something Rather Than Nothing” is a gorgeously calm weave of delicately fingerpicked guitar lines and a duet of voices. And as simple as it is, those opening lines, “Let’s destroy the borders, they’re only in your head” is perhaps the most mind-breaking and potentially world-changing line I may have ever heard in a song. A line that gets to the heart of the way much of humanity views the modern world, as well as how we are able to bestow so many tragedies on each other.
Its brilliant simplicity, a shuffled beat, a cascade of softly chiming strings and two voices searching for each other, remind me of the sort of music Damien Rice and Alison Hannigan have blessed us with in the past, songs so fragile that after they have finished, you might question if they ever existed if it was not for the new emotions making their way into your heart and soul. But even such an acoldate is only the starting point for this truly beautiful sonic spark of real compassion and humanity.
