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Folk Singles

Sebastian and the Deep Blue evokes airy nostalgia with “I Don’t Know”

Release date: October 16th, 2018

Dan Ray November 7, 2018
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Sebastian and the Deep Blue evokes airy nostalgia with “I Don’t Know” November 7, 2018

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Saxophonist Amelia Albert of Sebastian and the Deep Blue. // Photo by Clare Sharp

“I Don’t Know,” one of the latest tracks from Sebastian and the Deep Blue, from the first note, feels immediately familiar. The finger picked melody on guitar and fiddle conjures images of nostalgia over something never quite known, and when frontman Barry Sebastian’s vocals come in, they’re layered to sound more like a choir than a single singer, as he chimes, “I don’t know / I don’t know,” over and over. This gives the track a sense of washing over the listener, of a sleepy memory now faded to dust.

Sebastian and the Deep Blue itself is a seven-piece hodgepodge of a group, with members ranging from your typical pop band structure of drummer, guitarist, and bassist to the group’s horn and string sections. With influences ranging from pop and rock to orchestral music, Deep Blue’s sound can cast roots into many different genres, but “I Don’t Know” sticks itself firmly in the folk tradition: in addition to its heavy reliance on the string section, this track’s growth comes mainly from the instrumentation, as opposed to the vocal line.

While the lyrics differ slightly, Sebastian coos the same melody from beginning to just about the very end of the tune, and the fiddle and saxophone lines are really what serve as the impetus for change throughout the track. The instrumental melodies keep a similar pattern all the way through, but the way they subtly weave in and out of each other makes for a pert ear.

With a consistently repeating vocal melody and lyrics like, “I don’t know / I don’t know / what is right,” “I Don’t Know” is a track to easily sing along to and to then find yourself humming weeks later without remembering where the melody came from; it’s a slippery little earworm.

However, this track doesn’t reach for anything. It’s simple and easy — not necessarily in composition or performance — but in keeping with the status quo. “I Don’t Know” doesn’t leave me feeling like I’ve learned anything; while it’s pleasant to listen to in the moment and the melody is infectious, when the last cymbal chimes, I find myself wondering what’s next in my day as opposed to what’s next on Deep Blue’s setlist.

But, for the three minutes and 59 seconds that this track spans, it’s captivating. Listening to it is like taking a sip of ice cold water or sitting down for the first time all day; it’s refreshing. Simple and quiet, easy and lulling, “I Don’t Know” provides a respite in a world of not knowing.

 

7.9

Instrumentation

 8.0/10

Lyrics

 7.0/10

Listenability

 9.0/10

Experimentation

 6.0/10

Likelihood to get stuck in your head

 9.5/10

Comments

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).