“I dreamt of you last night / We were laughing and talking / I made fun of you like old-times,” starts the new song by Salt Ashes, titled 10+2. Heart-wrenching, melancholic, and vulnerable, the British artist starts the year by doing a tribute to one of the most important figures of her life: her father, Yusuf. He died in 2013, so the track’s title refers to the twelve years she’s been living without him — none of which have felt the same due to his absence. But also, she refers to it as the age she still liked to be carried to bed by him, refusing to grow up and give up on his unconditional love.
Death is a part of life — and the only certainty there is. However, that doesn’t really relieve us when we lose a loved one, especially someone as close as our parents. For Salt Ashes, this grief has translated into her new single, an incredibly intimate and beautiful song that reminds us to cherish every moment, especially when we’re surrounded by those who love us, celebrate us, and make us feel safe. “Oh I’d lay in your arms ‘till I was 10 + 2 / Pretending to sleep so you would carry me / All the way to bed,” she sings in the chorus.
In the music video, which Salt Ashes has edited herself, she’s gone through homemade videos of her household where we see her father, as well as herself as a little girl, playing together, smiling and having fun, and having a unique complicity — bonding over the ordinary gestures that mean everything in hindsight. With this emotive video, the Brighton-based artist sends a love letter to her late father, but also to anyone of her listeners who’ve ever experienced the pain of love in their hearts and lives.