To the Hilt

Album: The Altar (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • Over a doomy riff, Jillian Banks reminisces here about a former lover. She craves his return as without him she feels lost and incomplete.

    Hated you for leavin' me
    You were my muse for so long
    Now I'm drained creatively
    I miss you on my team
  • The song is the closing track on the standard edition of The Altar. Banks explained to Stories Behind The Songs: "It's sacred to me. It just feels… It felt like it needed to be the last thing you heard from me. It's a bit gentle. It also doesn't fit in between songs. It needs space because it's so emotional. It needs time to breathe and to be digested."
  • Banks was ill-prepared emotionally to write the song and as a result she made herself physically sick. She explained to Refinery29:

    "I was telling myself I was really angry to cover up how hurt I was and then this song came out. And it was really sad because my heart was broken but I didn't want to say that because anger is so much easier to feel than sadness and heartbreak and missing the s--t out of someone when you hate them at the same time. So that's how this song was birthed. I still don't like listening to it now.

    I didn't listen to it for months after I wrote it because it just made me nauseous. But I was never tempted to leave it off the album. I was proud of myself after I wrote it."

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