BAUM Mourns the Loss of a Friend and the Impossible Reconciliation on “Bad Kid”

Baum1_crop — Baum, photo courtesy the artist

The tonal bend and stretch in the opening moments of BAUM’s “Bad Kid” let you know you’re in for something a little different. The song is a complex portrait of a woman looking back on a friendship that had more than a few bumps in the road and coming upon her in the wake of the death of that friend. BAUM achingly tells us of a troubled youth who took advantage of a friend who may have had some mental health issues in pursuit of the desires that drove her beyond her will. And yet it’s clear that there was some kind of moving past the selfish act but now the narrator of the story feels the intense guilt of that terrible moment years ago and lamenting with her entire being not trying to make amends for that act until it was too late. The influence of this unnamed person is evident from the very first words of the song with maybe the friend representing some ideal or ethos and passing that passion or way of being forward: “I got my fire from you, burned me when you passed it down, never easy carrying somebody’s flame around, ooh, it’s from you.” Many people talk about how they wish they had reached out to a loved one or a friend for years and make posts to social media about how you should hug your loved ones and hold them tight in the wake of the death of a friend of family member. “Bad Kid” comes out of that sort of upswell of feeling but in personalizing it with poignant details the song is devastating. Listen to “Bad Kid” on Soundcloud and follow BAUM at the links below.