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Track By Track: Mi Mye on The Sympathy Sigh

12 August 2016, 15:15 | Written by The Line of Best Fit

We've been championing Mi Mye for a while now, their charming-but-painfully honest songs like "Great Sucksess" caught our ears as far back as 2013.

This week they return with The Sympathy Sigh, a lush collection of eleven snapshots from the North of Scotland where principle songwriter and lyricist Jamie Lockhart grew up, and Wakefield the place he now calls home.

Jamie reveals the stories behind each of the tracks on Sympathy Sigh below.

"I think everything's going to be fine"

Three people. One faces away from the fireworks and his partner to hide from the rain, another shouts across the town centre as his love walks away for the last time and the third is unsure if he's in a long distance relationship or nothing at all.

"Determan the extent"

The final days of a marriage. When you have anger management counselling, you fill out a form to determine the extent of your anger.

"Methadone church"

Identically dressed child twins look away from their mother as blood falls down over her top lip. Addicts call the Methodist church in Armley the methadone church.

"He believes in me"

In Skerray the local vicar used to come round on a Sunday and feel if the back of folks' TV sets were warm, meaning they had not been observing the Sabbath.

"Night city air

Steam rising up from the city of Leeds after a hot day like ghosts leaving it. Your arms feel like oars. Things come with the wind and are taken by the sea.

"All fin"

A son remembers how a family friend drove past his father bleeding on the side of the road, having slowed down to look at the accident.

"Night swimming and the snow"

On Sunday evening the snow came, and it was just cold enough and still enough for it to settle. The Inns of Court in Wakefield has R.E.M. on the jukebox and is almost empty.

"The sympathy sigh"

At night through the window of the kitchen you can see a bungalow with a blue door with a light on it where a couple live.

"Under the water line"

To get to the beach that separates Skerray from Naver you have to cross the river. There is a bridge and under the bridge is a deep pool. When you hold your head under the water in a warm bath you can't feel the tears coming out.

"Your handwriting"

In 1977 Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment on the north coast of Scotland exploded. Radioactive filings from nuclear fuel rods processed there are still washing up on the beaches of North Scotland.

"Ow harts"

A wedding hymn from the socialist hymn book. We lift our hearts with yours this day.

The Sympathy Sigh is out now. Buy it on Amazon.
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