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HAIM on Running If You Call My Name

by HAIM

on Spotify Exclusive Commentary (2013)

Host: Tell me about Running If You Call My Name and why did you want it to be the last song on the album? The kind of goodbye?
Danielle: Um, it was, that was actually the last song that we wrote, um, when we were recording the record. We never really wrote a lot of songs on the piano, well you play piano, Alana plays piano.
Alana: Yeah.
Danielle: Um, but we never really, I don't know why we never really wrote on piano but this is kind of like the first one where we had this piano line and it just felt kind of like a closer for some reason.
Alana: We put like blood, sweat, and tears into the last song. It was kind of like the end of this long, long recording process and we had such a crazy year this year and um, with Running If You Call My Name every time we played it it kind of just felt like you could- at least for us, every time I listen to it I can like feel all like the craziness that we went through and all the fun times and all like the really stressful times we went through. It's just like this big release every time I hear it and it just felt like such a good closer cuz it was the end for us. You can, I think you can kind of tell when you listen to it that it like, we put everything that we had into that song and it just seemed like a really nice way to end since it was the end for us on this record. That was it, just kind of like a release. It was, and we had written that like at the very, very end, it was like the last thing. We were just like "This is it, this is the last ounce of creative juice we have. This here."
Este: Yeah.
Alana: And that's just what happened. And I love, every time I listen to this song it's just so, I just love, I could listen to it over and over and over again cuz it's just, it's so crazy to hear what we came up with on that one. Touring really inspired us this year cuz all we want, I mean we've been a band for six years, almost seven years and all we wanted to do was tour and we could never do that cuz we couldn't get out of LA, we couldn't, you know we didn't have money, we couldn't do things. This year we got asked to be on so many amazing tours and meet so many amazing people and we would come back from tours, we'd have like a month and we'd just be so inspired. I think touring just, really inspired us the most out of everything, I think you can hear it in the new songs.
Alana: Yeah, it's just been the best year. I mean, we literally like we've played every kind of venue. We've played every living room, every parking lot. Every like, every time we would play at 6:30. We'd play before the opener of the opener of the opener.
Este: We'd play as, as people were coming in we'd be like "Thank you for coming to the show, here's another song. Thank- yes, ten, ten dollars at the door."
Alana: Yeah, yeah. We had like a hat out.
Este: Yeah, basically busking.
Alana: And so, yeah I mean, we're just really grateful and super lucky that we get to do this. And that we even, you know, can put out a record cuz that's all we wanted to do. I mean, we've played live so many times and all we wanted to do was record our debut record.
Este: I just like can't believe it's coming out. I don't think it's actually hit me that our record is actually going to be on a shelf.
Alana: Yeah.
Host: Have you had, held a copy yet? Of the CD?
Alana and Este: No
Este: That will be weird.
Alana: I'm gonna, I think it's just gonna like drop out of my, it's gonna like liquidate in my hands.
Este: It's like protecting it like it's a baby.
Alana: "Don't drop the CD!"
Este: "Don't drop the record!"
Alana: I don't even know-
Este: "Cradle its head, Este!"
Alana: I don't know what's gonna happen when I hold it for the first time. It's gonna be crazy.
Este: It's gonna be fun. I also can't wait to go to Amoeba Records. Like, it's like, you know you go to your hometown record store. I just can't wait to do that, go to Amoeba-
Alana: Yeah.
Este: See it on the shelf. It's gonna be crazy.
Alana: But yeah that's, that's the record. Which is pretty crazy.
Danielle: Ta-da!
Este: There it is.
All: *clapping*
All: Yes.
Este: Round of applause.