Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse took his life yesterday.
Once, during the May of 2007, the final term of my first year at university, I had to get a train home obscenely early in the morning. I left my campus bedroom for the station at around 6am, sleepless and zombie-like with Sparklehorse’s Good Morning Spider in my ears. Its songs still remain tied to that morning. Painbirds will always take me back to the walkway from Wentworth College up to the Biology Department; Box of Stars takes me to the Retreat bus stop, where I stood for minutes pondering whether to catch the next No.4 before continuing down the road; Hey Joe (one of Linkous’ Daniel Johnston covers) was playing as I walked past Dick Turpin’s grave and down onto Piccadilly; Cruel Sun transports me to Lendal Bridge.
Like Daniel Johnston, Linkous was something of an outsider. His was perfect music for the dead of morning, for a pensive break of dawn, for moving along a twilit path alone. That journey was his greatest impact on me – through it, I will remember him.
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