MP3 Download: The Drift's Hypnotic Track 'Luminous Friend'

The Drift

Paul Clipson

Click to listen to The Drift's 'Luminous Friend'

Earlier this month San Francisco-based The Drift released Blue Hour, their first album since the passing of founding member, Jeff Jacobs. Danny Grody tells Rolling Stone the hypnotic and tightly woven instrumental track "Luminous Friend" "was a bit of an anomaly for the album. Just seemed to come out of thin air. It was written shortly before going into the studio and around the time our very dear friend and member of the band Jeff Jacobs lost his courageous battle with cancer."

The band considers the melodic song to be a tribute to Jacobs. "Something about this piece felt very cathartic and really seemed to recall his soaring trumpet playing," Grody explains. "It seemed a fitting dedication to an amazing and talented person."

The Drift's Blue Hour was released on October 4th, but you can download "Luminous Friend" for free here.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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