Plenty of songs claim to come from a dark place. Few come with a story like this. In January 2008, Paul Farran, a Canadian working in Kabul, was inside the Serena Hotel when two gunmen stormed it. He escaped into the Afghan winter. Seven would perish. One attacker was captured with a suicide vest he never used.
Most artists would have written the revenge, or the recovery song. Farran, 18 years later, wrote something else.
‘absoluted II’ speaks directly to the man who nearly killed him, and refuses to blame him. My heart it beats with anger, yours is not to blame, he sings, in a deep, worn voice that will draw Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave comparisons. They fit, but this has its own feel, closer to someone telling you what happened than performing it. The arrangement stays sparse and unhurried, building slowly while images from that night surface: wreckage, cold, an “angel in jeopardy.” The song never raises its voice, and doesn’t need to.
The backstory is what makes it stick. Farran spent years digging into his attacker’s life, a young man from a remote village in Waziristan, and even wrote him letters in prison. They never arrived. That refusal to settle for a simple villain runs through the whole thing, and through the larger project this single opens: Stems from Darkness, due November 6 — a twelve-track album, a memoir, and an audiobook that weaves spoken passages between the songs.
It’s a big swing. But on the strength of this first single, Farran can clearly carry it. ‘absoluted II’ isn’t background music and doesn’t want to be. It’s a song about the things people carry long after everyone else has moved on, and it stays with you the same way.
‘absoluted II’ is out now on all platforms (https://www.paulfarranmusic.com).