The Year that Got Away

TW Walsh released two LPs and an EP on Made in Mexico, Truckstop and My Pal God between 1999 and 2001 before joining Pedro the Lion as a full-time member. Working with David Bazan, he contributed the opening riff to "Options" and the closing riff to "Second Best," as well as the song "Start Without Me" on 2004's Achilles Heel. His departure from Pedro the Lion led Bazan to give up the Pedro the Lion moniker altogether and start recording under his own name. (The song "Fewer Broken Pieces" off Bazan's excellent 2006 Fewer Moving Parts EP is about this).

As my previous post mentioned, there was a time when I first heard Pedro the Lion when I wanted anything and everything associated with it. Walsh's records were then (and remain now) fairly hard to track down in regular record stores. Insound has Pollensongs, and Amazon has all three records, but otherwise they are pretty scarce, which is a shame, because both Pollensongs and Blue Laws are wonderful records (I can't say the same about How We Spend Our Days, although some people like it).

Anyway, back before I was able to track down much of anything (even on P2P), I found this track. Taken from the Acuarela Songs compilation for the Spanish label Acuarela, it is the demo version of a track called "The Year that Got Away," which also appears in a fleshed out full-band version on Pollensongs. Technically I am bending my own rules a little bit because this is still in print, but as far as I can tell it's import-only and either way, it's certainly out of most people's price range. This song is the most devastating, heart wrenching thing I have ever heard. An absolute must-hear.

TW Walsh - The Year that Got Away (Watercolor, 2000)

Two tracks from Blue Laws and one from Pollensongs are also available here.

As a post-script, I should note that TW Walsh gave up full time music when he left Pedro the Lion. He is currently involved in a part time project called The Soft Drugs that plays shows in the Pacific Northwest and occasionally in Walsh's native Massachusetts. After an attempt to self-release an (excellent) EP called The Soft Drugs in Moderation didn't go well, TW made the music available for free through a Creative Commons license here. Check that out as well, particularly "Defending the Paint."