“The Grave” is Kate Vogel’s Attempt to Come to Terms With Her Own Human Limitations in Processing Grief

Kate Vogel has a gift for taking the most heavy experiences and personal darkness and turning them into meaningful songs that both honor the experience and cast insight into how one might process a bit of that grief. Her single “The Grave” is about the funeral of a friend who tragically died in a car crash and sketching the outlines of the story are minimal piano and guitar figures, a shimmering accent of percussion and a touch of pedal steel to augment a sense of loss. The lyrics sound as though Vogel and her significant other were devastated by the death of the friend but only one of them could be emotionally present at the funeral, or unable to show up at all, and the sense of guilt that lingers from that moment when common human frailty seems to crush you from within and amplify a sense of failure. Though Vogel doesn’t let herself off the hook in the song the act of writing it suggests the ability to feel acutely that loss and in articulating it with the delicacy of feeling displayed the hope of forgiveness of self even if you feel like you don’t deserve it. Listen to “The Grave” and other songs by Vogel on Spotify and connect with the songwriter at the links below.