Western Massachusetts folk band Love Crumbs and Cloudbelly have teamed up on the sprawling folk pop “Vacant Dream.”
“This song is about my brother – about loving and grieving the loss of my relationship with my brother while he struggles with his drug addiction,” explains Love Crumbs’ Michael Dubuque.
“I am an addict in recovery, so I have always had a lot of deep and resounding empathy for his struggle.”
Though they were close as children, Dubuque was unable to get him on the path to recovery.
“My brother would resurface, from time to time, after being out of contact for a long, long time. He has never, for example, met my youngest child. And I would grow attached again, and then need to grieve his loss all over again.”
The song is about learning to accept the situation as is.
“The prevailing wisdom is to love addicts in the family ‘from a distance,’ to accept the nature of what is happening – to try to stop having expectations from him that he can’t right now meet. The dream I had of him getting and staying clean became a vacant dream and I had to accept that. So, it was a purging of sorts of this pain that was so deep that I have, myself, despaired of life. Anyway, it’s all very hard to write about, as the song was.”
Dubuque tapped Cloudbelly (Corey Laitman) for the lead vocals.
“Cloudbelly is my favorite songwriter in the area and one of my favorite songwriters in general. They also have an incredible capacity to evoke emotions in their singing. I felt like no-one in the band exactly was nailing the lead vocal part (myself or Ali) and Corey agreed to do a collaboration.”
Cloudbelly’s haunting lilt was a labor of love: the band spent two days in the studio nailing down the vocal track, and it shows.
As for Dubuque’s brother:
“His story isn’t over and I love him very much.”
Love Crumbs — Instagram
This is an INCREDIBLE HEARTFELT Tender song I can relate as I am also in recovery.
What a moving experience I have listening to it! Great job !👏
Thank you Maureen – that’s deeply meaningful to us. That was a genuine hope of mine – that it would connect with other folks in recovery, or folks who had family members in addiction. Thank you for your note!