Remembering Where To Go

The Mynabirds “What We Gained In The Fire”

The Mynabirds’ debut album opens with “What We Gained In The Fire,” a song that feels more like a climax than a beginning. Nevertheless, the sequencing makes perfect sense. Musically, it puts the most dramatic and immediately impressive track at the start of the record, and thematically, it’s about finding a new path following the emotional upheaval of a traumatic break-up. You can sense the shock and confusion from the start of the song, but as it progresses and builds toward its cathartic release, the feeling is calm and hopeful. The fear subsides, the anguish fades, and what remains in the end is the faith that it all happened for a reason: “What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.” The song provides a feeling of closure and resolution, but its ending is only just the beginning of a new story.

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