A Letter to You from Metric’s Emily Haines

So I realize it’s been quite a while since I last wrote to you. I’ve been feeling generally bewildered at best and waiting until I had something concrete or remotely useful I could say. At first, I was just straight up dealing with the shock of how suddenly this global pandemic wiped out every concert Metric had lined up and focussing my energy on adapting to the practical consequences of these new complete unknowns. I know all of you reading this can relate. Organizing care for my mom who is in her 80s, grieving the loss of a dear friend in New York who contracted the virus and died, figuring out the best way to lend support to those in need, making sure the band could keep the lights on with the rug pulled out from under us for the foreseeable future— these things became my all-consuming purpose. Then, more recently, I was naively (briefly) convinced the worst was over and started mapping out ways to get back to Los Angeles to keep writing as I had been scheduled to do at the beginning of March. Now, six months since I moved into my cabin in the woods in Canada assuming it was temporary, I have accepted that I’m not going anywhere, Josh and Joules can’t even enter the country, and this is not going to be over anytime soon. My daily priorities have become routine: Read the grim death stats, make sure my mom is well, run, write. I’m fully aware of my good fortune at having a safe place to stay. This fact never leaves my mind as the whole world rides this thing out together. And as I write this, I’m attempting to direct my energy back into music to forge a way forward. Here we go.

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In a strange twist of timing, before this all happened, we were planning on releasing the Dirt Road version of “Empty”, and I’m thrilled to report it is finally coming out! The original version of the song appeared on our album Live it Out from 2005, but the lyrics sound oddly timely to me right now, hopefully in a way that brings comfort and makes you feel good as opposed to defeated and/or depressed? Fingers crossed it gives you a boost. Maybe a solitary living room acoustic dance party? Shake your head, it’s empty!

 

So yeah when we were setting up the release of the single a few months ago, we asked you to submit your “Empty” inspired artwork. After receiving hundreds of excellent entries, it quickly became clear it would be impossible to choose just one final piece to feature, so we ended up going with three images for the single, (two for the 7″ vinyl + one for the digital), and putting together a selection of other limited edition items featuring some of these brilliant, poignant submissions. The whole “Empty” collection is available now and we are donating a portion of the proceeds to benefit Doctors Without Borders, an essential organization we are proud to support. You can learn more about them here. And you can see all we got at ilovemetricstore.com

Not sure what comes next. I’ll leave you with this message I sent to a friend at the height of the lockdown here-

 

Been gardening, slowly working on building a studio, sewing… I hang out with trees and, like, 5 people total. Who am I? lol. But the fact is there are so many trappings from my old life I am relieved to be free of, spiritually and financially draining behaviours of consumption I thought were required but are no longer expected of me, if they ever even were.

Forever,
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