Grief arrives like a signal from deep space: ancient, delayed, undeniable. It tells us that something once luminous has moved and transformed beyond our immediate sight. In our solitude we imagine ourselves isolated points, adrift in the dark, yet every atom of us was forged in shared fires. Memory, love, and voice persist the way starlight does: long after the source has changed. The pain comes from the mismatch between what we feel and what is true. We sense connection, but cannot fully see it. Loneliness, then, is not proof of separation, but evidence of a bond too vast for our small perspective.
SRSQ (pronounced “seer skew”) returns with a ballad that moves at the speed of breath and bruise. Kennedy Ashlyn sings as if standing inside a familiar room, each phrase carried with care, each silence allowed its weight. Allen Daniel’s drums keep a patient watch, marking time while memory moves freely. At the center is Cash: Ashlyn’s best friend, gone since 2016, whose presence arrives as guidance as Ashlyn charts a course through turbulent waters. The song gathers loss by accretion: moments pressed together, love grown heavy, endurance learned the hard way. A remembered voice cuts through excess and despair, offering instruction simple enough to save a life.
“I didn’t plan to get this candid about the creation of and meaning behind this song, but recent events in my personal life have compelled me to open up a bit and share some honesty behind the lyrics,” admits Ashlyn. “I wrote this song on the edge of a pretty dark place, a place where I lived for many years, and still find myself in from time to time. I was living alone for the first time in my life in the house that I grew up in, fresh out of a nearly eight-year relationship, drinking tequila and Gatorade and banging my head against writer’s block. I had just come out of a(nother) great wave of loss (and loss, and loss) and was stumbling around in the grey ache of grief — again. Grappling with existential loneliness — again. A feeling so familiar that it sometimes feels like I was forged in it. I went to pour myself another tall glass of mostly tequila, when I suddenly heard my best friend’s voice in my ear: “Drink water.” …hearing her voice so clearly brought me to my knees. But in that brief moment of lucidity, I was reminded that she is still with me and that we are never really alone.”
The song hits hard, particularly during the holidays, when feelings of grief well up with memories of their lives. The theme behind Born Alone, Die Alone, as the title suggests, is a heavy one – but not without hope. Perhaps everything we assume to understand about the inner workings of the cosmos is merely the tip of the iceberg.
“I believe that what makes the human experience particularly difficult is our limited awareness of how connected we truly are,” Ashlyn continues. “From our perspective of being a human on this earth, we can’t understand, but I think deep down we “know”? and that dissonance is what causes us so much grief and suffering. The illusion of alone-ness is the curse of the human condition. I continue to grapple with but no longer stand behind the final refrain of this song — “we are born alone, and we die alone.” I don’t think that we die alone; I believe we die from the illusion that we ever were. I hope this song and this message brings you comfort and peace, or at the very least, brief respite from the illusion of alone-ness.”
The song leaves a small but steady truth in the listener’s hands: that Cash remains in spirit through acts of kindness and care beyond the veil; that connection survives distance and death; that sometimes staying alive begins with listening closely and choosing water over oblivion.
Watch Born Alone, Die Alone below:
SRSQ is the singular vision of singer and musician Kennedy Ashlyn, an operatic post-punk siren whose work transforms private grief into shared reckoning. Emerging from a stormy sea of public tragedy with Unreality (2018), Ashlyn arrived fully formed: commanding, devotional, and unafraid of emotional magnitude. Cast ashore in Los Angeles, she learned to walk on dry land in her own two heels with Ever Crashing (2022), expanding SRSQ’s palette while solidifying a worldwide reputation as a “diva of depression.”
Now, Ashlyn is stripping away the opera gloves, taking full control of every facet of SRSQ. Shoegaze drifts into pop, drama meets directness, and the lines between artist, genre, and medium dissolve. Her work is shaped by lived loss, a guiding force that continues to surface in moments of clarity and care. Rather than accepting isolation as fate, SRSQ questions the illusion of aloneness, reaching beyond the underground toward connection, recognition, and relief.
“It’s pronounced SEER-skew, and she’ll make you cry…”
Listen to Born Alone, Die Alone below and order the single here.
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