Goodbye, Bioshock

The greatest accomplishment I have found of transformative artists is to draw out of me an emotional attachment to a thing I didn’t care about, or didn’t like. I had no true love in me for Gears of War, but thanks to Gavin Dunne’s work on songs like The Grind, I have come to have an affection for the universe. I know about the story, I know who Clay Carmine is, and the significance of his story. I actively dislike the world of Grand Theft Auto, but I find the tailspinning escapism of Hard Cash really endearing.

It’s not just Gavin, but he’s a great example of someone who has taught me how to love things I hated.

This is the last Bioshock song he’ll make, I expect. I used to personally identify with the song that he first wrote on that world, Little Sister. There are four lines that resonated with me as I realised how easily I could hurt the gentle people around me:

A lumbering hulk beside a delicate flower
A gentle leviathan of terrible power

You may know that I was very unhappy with Burial At Sea, and really, very upset with Bioshock Infinite. But still, there are things in it that I love… and I feel a strange, wistful sadness that Gavin’s final song for this strange world and stranger set of ideas wasn’t able to kindle in me that same feeling. It seems fitting that my last hope to love this story, the last chance I had to enjoy a story about Elizabeth, a story for Elizabeth, fell flat, and felt strangely disjointed, misplaced… and just mournful.

I don’t know if that’s what he was trying to do, but here we are.

BIOSHOCK SONG - Dream Of Goodbye by Miracle Of Sound

BIOSHOCK INFINITE SONG - Dream Of The Sky by Miracle Of Sound

LITTLE SISTER - Bioshock Song by Miracle Of Sound

I have bought almost everything Gavin’s made. I recommend you do so too.

I’ll be here, listening to dreams of the sea. Wondering about the sadness I feel for a world lost, a story untethered, a life unlived.