Sunfair Sundown

Album: Things Take Time, Take Time (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • Over a steady beat of a drum machine, Courtney Barnett sings of those special small moments that can mean so much. The song centers on some friends who had just bought a house. "We were celebrating that," she told Uncut magazine. "Musing on life, existence, the art of getting lost; all those kind of things."
  • In a daze
    I can picture you whittling away
    With such care, with such patience and grace


    The "daze" was brought on by the potential of Barnett's friends' property renovations on Zoom, and the fact that they'd built a table.
  • Barnett wrote "Sunfair Sundown" after attending a party with her friends. "One of those nights you feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for friendship and connection," she told Apple Music. "I started writing it the next day, just because of that overwhelming, beautiful, big feeling - it was that simple."
  • "Sunfair Sundown" is a track from Things Take Time, Take Time. Barnett was ready to record material for her third album by the time 2020 rolled around, but the disruption caused by the pandemic inspired her to continue exploring. Only "Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To" survived.

    "I just wrote more songs," she told Uncut. "I liked the new ones more. It's a reminder to trust that songwriting process - sometimes a song only exists so that the next song can be written; it unlocks something in you to allow the next idea. It's just part of the writing process."

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