Songs about Sparklehorse and or Mark Linkous:
playlist youtube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUrroT-fr8_O-2RM8Pvr9RByM2G7fJNjY&si=gqs0l9ebfgAjSt7_
playlist spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4nRnRcbrIf4ThC9D9r7Vqa?si=9bf90de38fe2484b
2018
john parish + pj harvey - sorry for your loss
john parish and pj harvey have worked with linkous n the album It's a wonderful life back in 2000.
they 3 played live once...
https://open.spotify.com/track/2TTMY0HthX3mavpocVi1K0?si=DMAxjFUhSm-adgLk5HfFww
(vía https://open.spotify.com/track/2TTMY0HthX3mavpocVi1K0?si=Rc7HjvOaThyLYDI_LRm9Pg)
here's PJ talking about Mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxE_O0_PQcI
Sol Seppy - M/\RK
Sophie Michalitsianos (Sol Seppy) played in Sparklehorse live shows in 1999-2001 .she recorded in Good Morning Spyder, Distorted Ghost, and It's a Wonderful Life
now she is married with Scott Minor ("the second Sparklehorse") who played on almost every Sparklehorse tour and album.
https://clyp.it/55ihat03
biography by AllMusic:
After her time with Sparklehorse, Michalitsianos set up her own studio in upstate New York and began recording solo work. However, when a fire destroyed all her equipment and material, she started afresh and began creating what would become her debut solo release, The Bells Of 1 2. Signing to independent label Gronland under the more pronounceable pseudonym of Sol Seppy, her first single ‘Move’ was released in January 2006 and was followed by The Bells Of 1 2 in April of the same year. Taking two years to complete, the entire work was performed, engineered and produced by herself and was met with widespread critical acclaim. This engaging debut combined looping beats, piano and cello accompaniments with accomplished vocal melodies and lyrics. Fusing styles ranging from classical through to alt folk and electro pop, the album drew stylistic elements from acts including Björk and Sigur Rós. The stand-out tracks included ‘Come Running’ and the second single ‘Slo Fuzz’, which was released in May 2006.
Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Legend of the Wild Horse
(feat. Scott Minorr )
2015
Lothian 121 - "Tin Horses". Tribute to Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwimovQd-Y
Belly of the Sun (RIP Mark Linkous) - Sunfields
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90A91g-cYUE
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/habitat/id927279767
2014
Fennesz - Static Kings
Download: http://ks.kud.li/emego165
Album: Bécs [ALBUM]
Track: 1 of 7
Title: Static Kings
Artist: Fennesz
Label: Editions Mego
Cat#: EMEGO165
Formats: LP/CD/Digital
Digital Release: 28th April 2014
Physical Release: 28th April 2014
Christian Fennesz and Sparklehorse (aka Mark Linkous) recorded the album "In the Fishtank" in two days.
They have played live (with Scott Minor) in 2003, 2007 and 2009.
In those shows they played some of the last songs by Mark Linkous, still never realesed.
https://youtu.be/1bmEetPiHXc?si=epGspHsQwYWk-h_t
2012
Johnny Hickman: Destiny Misspent (Tilting CD) [2012]https://open.spotify.com/track/3hUvC7JetETrzaAvpr48n5
Johnny Hickman is guitarist, co-founder and co-songwriter of the band Cracker.
mark linkous have played live and recorded several songs with Cracker
"Mr. Linkous decided he should go most folks gonna waste away real slow Now John Lee Hooker was a man I'd like to have known Lord, let me die in my sleep after a show"
JOHNNY CORDNER - Heaven And A Star
Singer songwriter Johnny Cordner performs one of his own self penned songs A Tribute To Sparkle Horse at the Open Mic night in Portadown 29th August 2012.
2011
A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Requiem For The Static King Part One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_DaLuqNSJc
Order the album on CD/2xLP/DL here: http://erasedtapes.com/store/index/ER...
A Winged Victory for the Sullen is the name of an ambient music duo consisting of Dustin O'Halloran and Adam Wiltzie (who played guitar and keyboards in Sparklehorse during 2006/2007).
Angela Faye Martin - Swifts and Swallows
during the year 2009 Mark Linkous produced the album Pictures from home by Angela Faye Martin
he played in all the tracks.
she wrote this song for him, and dedicated her second album, Annyversary, recoded by Allan Weatherhead, with collaborations of Mark's brother Matt Linkous, and Melissa Moore. They 3 have also played live and recorded with Sparklehorse.
Matt Linkous and Melissa Moore also have a music project named The Rabbit, with several songs recorded with Mark.
Swifts and Swallows was written in memory of Mark Linkous, with love and admiration. Posted on the anniversary of his passing, March 6, 2011.
Swifts and Swallows Irwin Street End of winter
You shoved away, boot sole and cinder
We kicked the campfire Walked the mountain down We got the call
You took your guns to town You shoved away, all soot and boot sole today
Said you were okay Isn't that what we're supposed to say
You said that you were okay But not today Lay a track down and we'll go see Tom
Here comes a girl singer But I like the song I'll make the coffee If you take the clip out
You say your sorry
Let's take the bike out Swifts and swallows arrive on Hall of Fame Were met by tribes of birds saying
Things are not the same Since the branches spelled your name ...on the sky
2010 (c) Angela Faye Martin
JesseSykes & The Sweet Hereafter Birds of Passerine
the band toured with Sparklehorse during the Dreamt for lightyears... tour.You dream the birds of Passerine Where night calls past, every day serene You're free from the muck caught in the mire Born of light, stillborn of desire Some, some, they get away While others they find the will to stay And some thrive but are left unsatisfied The world won't let you go, no, the world won't let you go And still we had to cry For the space you occupied
2010
again polliwog - Caught up in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKcYGX-BZ8M
This is our first song, and video on Youtube. It's in many ways inspired by, and somewhat of a tribute to Mark Linkous aka. Sparklehorse. You can also check out our not so awsome but very awsome website: http://www.againpolliwog.com
Long Desert Cowboy - 04 - Mark Linkous (from "Symphony of the Deceased")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbzQn6LUS2Y
a tribute to the late Mark Linkous from Long Desert Cowboy's album "Symphony of the Deceased" (Cakes and Tapes, 2010). Artist: http://www.myspace.com/longdesertcowboy Label: http://www.cakesandtapes.com
iphonegaragebandeulogy for Linkous
this one was posted in youtube 5 days afeter Mark's passing
Publicado el 11 mar. 2010
Brock Harris- Empty Stable (Sparklehorse/Mark Linkous Tribute)
this one was posted in youtube just 2 days afeter Mark's passing
Publicado el 8 mar. 2010
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3dCOMfzDLkI was upset to hear on 7 March 2010, that Mark Linkous had taken his life the day before. This is the very rough "demo" that resulted. I may re-record for a proper release someday, but this is raw. This is inspired. It's what I'm sure many of his family, friends, and fans are saying themselves right now. If you'd like to download this song, it's yours. I uploaded it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?mlmqy2nurxx Everything that's made is made to decay But why now? And why this way? Could you see the light we saw inside you? Did it all become too much for you? Your broken gifts repaired broken hearts A soundtrack to life that hit like velveteen darts And you decide that your work here is done And you set yourself free beyond the moon and the sun Now there's an empty stable We'll hold it for you as long as we're able So sad that you weren't stronger Wish that you could have stayed longer We all want to know why And we'll think of you when we look to the sky One last horseback ride Before you gallup off to the other side Goodbye...
BONUS TRACK:
Daniel Johnston - Syrup Of Tears (Paris, 15 April 2010).
dedicated to Mark Linkous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPJs3GSr64M
Daniel playing one of the songs they recorded togheter, a month after Mark's dead
...there are a lot more... some of them listed in here: http://www.sparkleon.org/?page_id=5216
UPDATE AUGUST 2025
David Lowery - Mark Loved Dogs and Babies [Official Audio]
https://youtu.be/RBHge8c1DRc?si=TxaCX1dcyqbtO6Bb
#104 Mark Loved Dogs and Babies
 By Osmund Geier - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/ David Lowery- Fathers Sons and Brothers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Stream or order this album here. Throughout my life, I’ve had many dogs and many cats. They have richly rewarded me. I couldn’t tell my story without at least mentioning some of the key animals in my life. When I started dating Mary, I found a kindred spirit in my love for animals. But Mary was even more devoted—she had a special calling to rescue the stray, the unloved, and the hard-luck cases. Three dogs were especially important in the early years in Richmond. Mary had found some kind of greyhound mix, nearly completely hairless from malnutrition and mange, wandering through traffic in the Carytown neighborhood of Richmond. She named her Daisy, and she was actually a fine-looking dog once her hair grew back. People constantly asked what breed Daisy was, thinking she was some kind of purebred hound or working dog. Normally, she was well-behaved, but she never completely lost her street-dog ways, and we had to constantly be on guard with our food. If she thought she could get away with it—and the reward was great enough—all training was overridden. One time, I found her on the kitchen counter, delicately removing sausages I was cooking in an iron skillet. She also developed a habit of running to the door and barking as if someone had knocked. I fell for it once and returned to find my plate of Greek spaghetti missing. Daisy was nowhere to be found. Jed was a black lab-chow mix, or something like that—a fairly large dog. Mary first noticed him and his sister when they were maybe four months old. They were living in the woods behind a 7-11 on Doswell Rd, just off Interstate 95. Clearly, someone had dumped them there. The two of them had figured out how to beg for food from the customers at the 7-11, but they had gone almost completely feral at this point, and Mary couldn’t catch them. Eventually, someone managed to catch the sister and take her home, but this left poor Jed in the woods alone. One day, Mary noticed that Jed was not there. She asked the manager at the 7-11, and he said that the game warden had taken Jed a few days ago. When Mary called the game warden, she learned Jed was scheduled for euthanasia. Mary said she wanted to take him home. The warden was skeptical. He thought that Jed, now about six or eight months old, was going to be difficult to domesticate again. Jed would snap at anyone who tried to approach him in the kennel. Eventually, the warden relented. He caught Jed with a loop and pole and put him in the truck. He drove him to our property. We were now living in the country, and I had fenced about an acre and a half of the property around the house. The warden just drove into the middle of the property, and we coaxed Jed out. He bolted toward the shed/recording studio and managed to get underneath it. Eventually, he made himself a little den under there. We took food to him and gave him water. After a few days of this, we introduced our other dogs to him. That is always a scary moment, as they were both much smaller than he was. Fortunately, he was very friendly toward other dogs, and when our littlest, Lucy, invited him to play, he joined in. Soon, he was out patrolling the property as part of our little misfit dog pack. But he remained half-wild; you couldn’t approach him and pet him. Our old country vet suggested we just buy a block of cheese and try to feed him little treats by hand. Why cheese? The vet sort of shrugged and said, “Dogs love cheese.” This worked rather quickly, and suddenly we were able to pet him (briefly) or give him a scratch under his collar. But he would be almost a year old before he would come in the house. It was winter. He’d finally started sleeping in the doghouse we had on the porch next to the front door. I had a heating pad in the doghouse. Finally, one night we had one of those polar vortex events, and the temperature was forecast to go down to minus five. I’d been trying to get him to come in the house almost every night for a while. We had this giant wood stove in the foyer of the old farmhouse. It would heat the entire house. He’d taken to standing in the door if it was open and bathing in the heat from the stove, but he wouldn’t come in. But this night, we opened the door, Mary talked to him a little bit, and he walked in on his own accord. There were four or five cats sprawled on the floor around the wood stove. A couple of them darted off, but others barely moved, and he joined them on the floor next to the stove. Eventually, Jed became the most normal and well-behaved of all the dogs: good on a leash, good with other dogs, friendly to people. With one curious exception—he didn’t like Johnny Hickman. We have no idea why, but if I didn’t keep him under voice command, he would circle behind Hickman and nip at his rear. He made pretty good contact once. Hickman stopped visiting us after that. Mary found Lucy in an alley in the Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond. She heard an animal clearly in distress and went running. The dog had apparently fallen off the second-floor balcony of a house—at least, that’s what her owner told Mary. But that didn’t seem right. It wasn’t that high, and Lucy clearly had a severely broken right rear leg. It seemed more like abuse. Mary just scooped Lucy up, and we took her to the vet. She didn’t ask permission. Lucy required some pretty major surgery, and in the end, they basically fused a joint so that she always walked with a limp, or when running, swung that leg out in circles. She was the smallest of the dogs and quickly established herself as the alpha. In my pickup truck, there was a specific order: she had to sit in the middle next to me, Mary got the window, or if Mary wasn’t there, Daisy was next to her and Jed was at the window. She would snap at the other dogs until they were in the proper order. We always had to warn people not to pet Lucy because we never knew when she might bite someone. She was mostly fine with people petting her, but when she was done, she’d just bite you to make you stop. The one exception was Mark Linkous, the singer of Sparklehorse. As mentioned previously, Mark and his brother were the first people I met in Richmond. Mark and I became very close, and he would stay with us all the time. Lucy loved Mark. She never bit him. Mark grew really fond of Lucy and would just come by the house sometimes and pick Lucy up while he drove around and did errands. There are a few songs that Mark wrote that seem as if he’s referencing a pretty girl, but he’s actually talking about Lucy. “Happy Place” is entirely about Lucy, specifically her habit of controlling the dog food dish despite being significantly smaller than his dogs. She would take a mouthful of her food away from the dish and eat it in her “happy place” when she judged it was time to let the other dogs eat. Mark loved dogs. And babies. When my oldest son was born, he was the first one at the hospital to visit. He also gave my son his middle name, or at least lobbied hard for it (it’s a Cormac McCarthy reference; he was a big fan). Mark called from the front desk to my wife’s room, and the nurse picked up the phone and said, “Is <redacted> here?” She was very confused—Why was the baby getting a phone call? It’s an unusual name, Perhaps its a family name? is there a <redacted> Sr? The sad thing about this is that Mark and his wife were not able to have children. I joked in a previous song about the old trope, “A baby will fix everything,” but in this case, I don’t know—maybe it would have. The science is mixed on generic self-reported happiness levels for parents, but there is evidence that fathers who are not estranged from their children are less likely to fall into “hopelessness” and die deaths of despair. Knowing Mark for a very long time, my hunch is he might not have taken his life if he had the sense of purpose and responsibility that comes along with fatherhood. There is certainly research that shows that fatherhood has the greatest effect on reducing deaths of despair among middle-aged rural white males—a demographic to which Mark belonged. Unfortunately we will never know. Mary found Jed behind the 7-11 out on Doswell road It took a while to tame him but then it took It was minus 5 one winter night The wood stove blazing hot He came into the house all on his own Jed never liked the guitar player He was always trying to bite his ass Other wise that dog loved everyone Lucy had a broken leg From a fall off a balcony That’s what her owner said we didn’t believe Took little Lucy got a pin put in her leg And no, we never took her back I guess we are dog nappers Lucy bit everybody except for Mark Linkous He would pick her up for rides in his car He even wrote two songs about her And everyone just assumed They were love songs about a beautiful girl Mark loved dogs and babies he came to visit my day-old son He took a big sniff of his head and said “I love that smell” Mark loved dogs and babies and may have a happier life If he and his wife could have had little babies of their own Or maybe not ++++++++++++++++++++++++ David Lowery: vocals, guitar and bass David Lowery- Fathers Sons and Brothers is a reader-supported publication. |
