In a way, “Unlove Me” was the song that started The Rough & Tumble’s Holiday Awareness Campaign. We were playing a show in Florence, AL and were introducing this sad song; a conversation between two people far away from each other, one wishing for their love to be over because it had run its course and the other wishing to start over, because they would do it better a second time. As often happens when introducing a sad song, one of us made a joke. It went something like, “This is a song called, Unlove Me. It was written for Valentines Day.” Some people laughed. Some didn’t. We thought it was funny, so we made the joke again at the next show. And that’s how a record begins, folks.
The music video for “Unlove Me” became special to us because of the people involved; the heavily tattooed Ian White, and his wife, Lindsay, the un-inked. In their skin, they symbolized the differences between two people trying to make a life together. After the video shoot, over two years ago now, they told us a bit about their own relationship and their own struggle to find a way back to each other, and how they had almost called it quits until around the time a teeny-tiny folk band called and said “Will you be in a music video for a song called, Unlove Me? No. This is not a joke. Yeah. You just have to sit there.”
We want to wish you a happy Valentines Day wherever you are this year. Whether you’re with your sweetheart or with a bottle of Yellowtail and the movie High-Fidelity, we love you and appreciate your friendship.