"The Day I Lost My Voice" (The Suitcase Song) by Copeland ft. Cassidy Klagstad, Sunday, February 13, 2022

The sweet melancholy of You Are My Sunshine is always more uplifting than depressing. I've talked about this record so much because it fully encapsulated the winter of 2009 for me. At least the crueler part of winter, January to March or whenever the colder-than-expected winds wind down in Eastern Tennessee, giving way to an at-first temperate early spring to a melting mid-to-late spring, oozing in a concoction of sweat and humidity. Somewhere in the season changes I got the flu and missed a couple of days of school. My roommate and I had a cough that lasted until the end of the winter. And we listened to this album on the boring days. It was the soundtrack to Easy Mac and instant coffee--two things I don't miss at all.

AND THE MAN IN THE MOON NEVER MAKES HIS REPLIES UNDERSTOOD. "The Day I Lost My Voice," is the kind of song about a period in your life that you just can't seem to catch a break. Even the most careful singers often experience laryngitis on tour. This illness, though, can have devastating financial ramifications on the band and can shatter the confidence of the singer. But the situation was even worse for Copeland. After being lost in the shuffle of corporate restructuring at Columbia Records and the closure of their indie label The Militia Group, the band released a B-sides project and quietly sold their van, and the end looked inevitable for Copeland fans. But not long after, the band announced signing to Tooth & Nail Records and a new album to be recorded with Aaron Sprinkle. Both Sprinkle and Marsh have talked about the creative process of creating You Are My Sunshine. For Sprinkle, he recalls just allowing Marsh to take over most of the production. Marsh worked on much of the record late at night, after the band and Sprinkle went home. The band came into the studio the next day and heard what Marsh had recorded and added to it.

WHAT COULD BE AN ANCHOR HERE, WITH A STORM ON THE RISE. Unfortunately, the break-up did come. According to guitarist Bryan Laurenson, in an interview on The Local Wave Podcast, after touring on You Are My Sunshine, Copeland failed to secure big tours that would take them to the next level in the indie rock scene. Aaron Marsh didn't like touring very much and wanted to work on music in the studio without touring to support it.  "The Day I Lost My Voice" (The Suitcase Song) recalls the hard times, of trying to make it on tour. But the song is also universal. It's a "cold and broken hallelujah" for everyone down and out on their luck. It's a song about transitions. It's about being too sick to do the things that you want to do or have to do. It's about that torn feeling you have when you are being divided in two places, maybe because of a move, changing jobs, or a long-distance relationship. When you've got your life in a suitcase, you can't live comfortably. 

Read “The Day I Lost My Voice” by Copeland on Genius