Lost Track
by Haim

Album: released as a single (2022)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Inspired by a scene in John O'Hara's 1934 novel Appointment in Samarra, Haim wrote this song about feeling they've "lost track" of living a fulfilled life.
  • The song originated with one line:

    I'll never get back what I lost track of

    The trio had written the lyric back in 2021 but couldn't figure out what to do with it. The breakthrough came when filmmaker and regular Haim collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson did a "director's cut" issue for W Magazine for his Licorice Pizza movie with Alana Haim on the cover (the film co-stars Alana in her acting debut). An opportunity came to do some music during the photo shoot and Anderson mentioned Appointment in Samarra as a possible direction.

    The sisters started ferreting around the book, and a passage set at a country club stirred them. They read how Julian English, the owner of a Cadillac dealership, threw a drink in the face of an important investor in his business, damaging his reputation with the town's Catholic community. "We were inspired by the idea of someone doing something so drastic to get out of a situation they felt uncomfortable in - just to feel something," Haim explained.

    Then Haim remembered the lyric they'd been trying to find a home for and wrote the song using it as its basis. They penned and recorded "Lost Track," then shot the accompanying visuals all within a space of a few days.

    Haim described the finished track and its video as "very collaborative" and "off the cuff."
  • The Paul Thomas Anderson-directed video is set at a stuffy 1950s country club in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. It finds lead vocalist Danielle Haim playing a fashionable lady sat in the audience of a charity fashion show where Este and Alana are models. Bored and ill at ease, she takes a lighter to a playing card and floral centerpiece. The sister's mother Donna and Anderson's daughter Pearl also feature in the clip.
  • The reoccurring glockenspiel-like sound is a celesta played by Buddy Ross. He is best known as Frank Ocean's music director and keyboardist.

    Other songs and classical works recorded with a celesta include:

    "The Nutcracker Suite" by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky

    "Rhythm Of The Rain" by The Cascades

    "Cherish" by The Association

    "She's A Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones

    "Sunday Morning" by The Velvet Underground

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in Songs

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in SongsSong Writing

Elvis, Little Richard and Cheryl Cole have all sung about Teddy Bears, but there is also a terrifying Teddy song from 1932 and a touching trucker Teddy tune from 1976.

Don Felder

Don FelderSongwriter Interviews

Don breaks down "Hotel California" and other songs he wrote as a member of the Eagles. Now we know where the "warm smell of colitas" came from.

Jimmy Webb

Jimmy WebbSongwriter Interviews

Webb talks about his classic songs "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman" and "MacArthur Park."

Janis Ian: Married in London, but not in New York

Janis Ian: Married in London, but not in New YorkSong Writing

Can you be married in one country but not another? Only if you're part of a gay couple. One of the first famous singers to come out as a lesbian, Janis wrote a song about it.

John Waite

John WaiteSongwriter Interviews

"Missing You" was a spontaneous outpouring of emotion triggered by a phone call. John tells that story and explains what MTV meant to his career.

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New York

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New YorkSong Writing

Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.