Happy Birthday, Montana!
You would be 31 today. You were 28 when we recorded this on February 15th, 2020. It was almost 9 years ago to the day when we recorded our first song together. That was the first time I met Montana Elliot, your endlessly powerful alter-ego, and I learned that I was actually recording a powerful laser beam that could split open reality and pull everyone in earshot into another world.
Grief eventually calcifies into a reduction. Images, words, and songs to compartmentalize the full human being we miss. We all need to do this to survive, because it’s impossible to replicate a soul. It can be scary to watch these concentrations and symbols of a person stack up, while real and cherished memories of them stay locked in to a fixed amount. It’s natural, required to heal, and understandably harrowing to navigate. Ultimately, it’s deeply comforting. It creates a language for all of us to remember you. Grief also means learning so much more about a person through fragments and memories that don’t belong to you. We’ve all become this incredible coalition of Montana Experts. We’re always researching you and sharing our findings with each other.
These connections and conversations are an essential reminder that none of us are broken for loving you so much. If we were broken our love would drain out and disappear, but we’ve been walking around with our hearts filled to the brim and we haven’t spilled a drop. We continue to pour all of our love for you, and all the love you have for us, into each other. Forever and ever.
p.s. I included the laugh in the beginning the same way I did when I sent you the first demo and you got mad at me. My final prank to you, but I think it fits beautifully.
p.p.s Never mind, I just found the text where you told me to put the laugh back in after I took it out. It was your idea the whole time!? Your final prank to me.
Sharpless - People in Love (Music Video)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVIF_c1kyxs
released April 26, 2023
Performed, and produced by Montana Elliot and Jack Greenleaf
Written by Jack Greenleaf
(with additional vocals by Rebecca Ryskalczyk)
Art by Sedona Blue
(
www.instagram.com/sedonablue_art/)