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Tatum Howell

Dr. A. Lalonde

MUS 155 Music History and the Present

September 18, 2023

Song: “Haunted” by Laufey

My struggles with friendship and music

I grew up in Vancouver’s low-income housing with my mom. While she struggled to support the

two of us with her disability checks and dead end jobs, I struggled to make friends in school. Often the

kid picked on for their weight I truly didn’t have any friends, and the friends I made were superficial. I

wanted to fit in, trying to dance with the other girls to Hannah Montana and only getting shoved away for

not being thin enough to dance with them. It wasn’t until the third grade when we moved to Vancouver

Island that I tried other ways to make friends, this time through music. My mom didn’t have any money,

but after begging her, I was allowed to join the local kids choir at the cost of my birthday presents. I didn’t

make any friends there either. I wasn’t good enough, my voice was too hoarse, I was overweight, I was

weird, and I didn’t fit in. Yet, I didn’t give up. In school, we were introduced to instruments, and in grade

four I picked up my very first brass instrument, the trumpet.

I was hooked, I barely put the thing down. I let my mom drop me from the choir, and instead I

picked up anything and everything trumpet wise. Seeing me working so hard, for my tenth birthday and

combined Christmas present I got my first piano. Lessons were too expensive, so my mom tried to teach

me what she knew on my quiet and small apartment piano. Somewhere between the ages of eleven and

twelve I began to play other brass instruments, first trombone, then tuba, and after that French horn. With

its warm and smooth tone, it quickly absorbed all of my love and attention. I still didn’t have any friends,

but my teachers treated me with kindness, and that was more than enough for me.

It was an escape from my struggling home life. My mother would scream at me at home that I

didn’t work hard enough and that I was a waste of money, and at school and in my piano and horn lessons
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I was treated with nothing but kindness. I never knew just how talented I was as a child, and I wish I

could go back and give that poor little girl a hug and all the words I so desperately wanted to hear.

Growing into my body and beginning to enter my teens, I joined anything and everything my high school

offered. I was in every single ensemble from vocal jazz to wind orchestra and brass choir, anything I

could join to escape my life outside school I did. I taught piano once I passed my RCM Grade 8 exam, I

spent late nights in the band room playing my horn and yelling at myself for not having the beautiful tone

I desired. It didn’t matter how many times my poor horn teacher Sussie told me I sounded beautiful, I was

never good enough.

I’m still hard on myself, but now I take a kinder approach to both me and other people. I

understand the struggles of some of my past students, I understand why I was treated with such kindness

from my teachers, and I use my own experiences to look at life. Music has and was always an escape for

me, be it listening, or playing. I have had favourite composers throughout my life, like Ryuichi Sakamoto

who influenced my piano playing and the emotion I put into my music. However, in my recent adulthood,

my music taste has evolved into something softer and more human. Laufey is my artist that I have chosen

for this paper, with a soft yet vibrant personality to her tone, her music has often made me shed a tear or

two.

The song I chose is “Haunted” by Laufey. In the beginning of the piece, it’s very simple, with a chord of

strings being held while a violin introduces us to the main melodic idea of the piece. The piece is a slow

bossa in 4/4, and it isn’t until we get into bar 25 and the second verse that she introduces us to a soft

snare. It pushes the flow of the melody that has evolved through the short bridge, and gives it forward

momentum. Our homophonic melody has evolved into more of a heterophonic sound, while Laufey’s

voice drifts up and down to add variety to the melodic idea, the violin remains constant. Now in the

remaining thirty or so bars there is layering of her voice in tight lower thirds that sit under the melody,

while a guitar strums chords with the strings that flow over the background in a legato movement.

The piece in and of itself is very legato even for it being a bossa nova, following a loose and

relaxed feeling as it evolves from the simple string introduction to what feels like a full orchestra that is
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blooming with life, with Laufey’s voice sitting in the centre of it all. It reflects the melancholic words of

the piece that speak of an unrequited love, nights of sin spent together only for him to leave in the

morning and leaving her alone with her thoughts. She promises to never let this love follow her as the

strings pick up in volume and crescendo. Yet, as the backgrounds decrescendo, she admits that she knows

he’ll be back, and she will be left alone once more. As the piece comes to a close, she hums a melody

separate from the musical idea, and everything but the strings from the beginning fade away. Leaving us

on a Gm7 chord that evokes a sad, melancholic feeling.

The song in its sadness reminds me of my own emotions, yet not so much with a lover but friends

and companionship. With me holding them close and welcoming them into my heart, knowing full well

that they don’t care about me like I do them. Allowing them into my life with open arms no matter how

many times they hurt me. Promising to myself that I won't let myself fall into their trap of kind words and

caring gestures, only to be haunted by friends that were never truly friends.