i slept under a crumbling bridge in a thunderstorm and found the flower that named my song

this is the story behind immortelle.

not the production notes or the mixing decisions. the actual thing that made the song exist. i've been sitting on it for a while because it feels private in a way most things don't. but the song is coming out soon and it feels right to say it now.

i don't know the name of the bridge. i'm not sure it has one anymore, or that anyone who would know is still around to say.

i found it on foot, late afternoon, somewhere i won't be more specific about than "not in the US." i'd been walking for a few hours after a ride dropped me further from town than i expected. the landscape was dry and flat and then suddenly there was this thing -- an old stone bridge crossing what i think used to be a river but was now mostly a ditch with some ambition.

the bridge wasn't in use. you could see that immediately. sections of the railing were gone. there was vegetation growing through the surface in a few places, which is the structure's way of telling you it's moved on to other things. but it was still standing. mostly. in the way old things sometimes stand when there's nothing left to push them over.

i was going to keep walking. then the sky started doing what skies do when they've decided you're not in charge anymore.

it came in fast. that kind of storm that skips the polite warning stage and goes straight to theatrical. lightning first, then the sound, then the rain all at once like someone flipped a switch.

i got under the bridge.

it was the obvious move and also slightly less safe than it sounds because parts of the bridge were not entirely committed to staying in one piece. i'd tested this by trying to climb up onto the surface eariler and watched a chunk of stone dislodge and fall with a sound that said: okay, not that then. so i went back down. under it. which is the opposite of what a bridge is for, i know.

the rain hit hard for about forty minutes. i had a small electric water boiler, the kind you use in hotel rooms when the minibar is just two sad things and a Bible, and i made some instant coffee with it. the water tasted metallic, a bit strange, the kind of taste that makes you think about all the countries the kettle element has been through. it was fine. it was good, actually. there's a specific quality to bad coffee in a weird place that tastes better than it should.

i ate something forgettable and then, because i was warm enough and dry enough and there was nothing else to do, i fell asleep.

the bridge.

i kept looking at it from underneath. the way it had been built to do one specific thing -- to carry people from one side to the other, to close the distance between two points -- and now it just. didn't. the river it was crossing was gone. the road that fed into it had been rerouted or abandoned. nobody needed it to connect anything anymore.

but it was still there. still in the shape of a bridge. still technically doing what it was designed to do, in the sense that if you put something on one side, it would get to the other side. the purpose was intact. the context for the purpose had just disappeared.

i thought about longing. the kind that doesn't go away when it stops making sense. you love someone, or you wanted to, and the connection never formed the way you built yourself for it to. but you're still in the shape of someone who was ready to be that for somebody. you were supposed to carry people across something. that was your role. you built yourself around it.

and now you're just standing there, in a ditch, in a thunderstorm, waiting.

i'm not saying i cried. i'm also not saying i didn't. it was raining and the audio situation was ambiguous.

i slept eventually. the thunder quieted to something rhythmic, almost like it was trying to be considerate. i woke up once when part of something shifted above me and put a small amount of debris on my jacket. i assessed the situation, decided i was probably fine, and went back to sleep.

it was early morning when i woke up properly, just starting to get light. the storm was gone. the air smelled clean in the specific way it only does after rain in dry places.

and there was a man standing about thirty feet away, watching me.

he wasn't doing anything threatening, exactly. but he had the energy of someone who was making a decision, and i didn't know what the decision was, and i didn't particularly want to find out. i packed my things with a speed i've developed over years of knowing when a situation is asking you to conclude it. we made eye contact once. i nodded. he didn't nod back.

i walked in the other direction. that was the end of that.

here's the part that matters most.

growing at the base of the bridge, in the cracks where the stone met the ground, there were these small yellow flowers. dense little clusters, almost furry looking, a color that was somewhere between yellow and gold and the inside of something warm. they smelled faintly like curry, which seemed wrong and then seemed exactly right.

i took a photo. later -- this was days later, in a town with a library -- i found one of those old botanical reference books, the kind with illustrations that take up most of the page, and i looked it up.

immortelle.

also called the everlasting flower. helichrysum. the name comes from the greek for sun and gold. it's one of those plants that doesn't really die when you pick it -- it dries out but holds its shape and color. it lasts. people use it in wreaths for that reason. in parts of europe it shows up at graves because it just keeps going, even after the thing it was near has stopped.

a flower that grows in abandoned places. that stays when everything around it has changed. that holds its shape even after the context is gone.

that's the song. that's all of it, right there.

i wrote immortelle. for the bridge that was still trying to connect nothing. for the feeling of being built for something that didn't happen. for the flower that doesn't die just because the place it grew stopped mattering to anyone.

and a little bit for the weird metallic coffee in the dark while the rain came down.

the song is out may 27. pre-save it. or don't. it'll exist either way. that's kind of the point.

immortelle. is slow. slower than most things i make. the production is minimal on purpose -- i wanted it to feel like a room you're in by yourself at 4am, not a room someone made to sound like that.

the lyrics don't explain the bridge. i don't think they should. but if you've ever loved someone in a direction that didn't get returned, you'll probably know what part of the bridge they are.

the flower is in the artwork. small, in the corner. most people won't notice it. that's fine. it was always more for me than for anyone else. the song was too, at first. they usually are.

immortelle. — out may 27, 2026. pre-save at distrokid.