WHITNEY BALLEN Songs of loss. Credit: Courtesy of the artist

WHITNEY BALLEN Songs of loss.

WHITNEY BALLEN Songs of loss. Courtesy of the artist

The title of Whitney Ballen’s new EP Being Here Is Hard was inspired by a simple thought that struck the Seattle musician one day on her way to work: Sometimes just being “here”—whether that’s this moment, headspace, city, country, or planet—can be exhausting.

Being Here Is Hard (released earlier this month on Portland’s Good Cheer Records) is all about leaving. People moving away, relationships ending, friends dying. Its five acoustic songs drift in the wake of those who didn’t stay.

“It was all around the same time that I had experienced a lot of loss through some friends passing away, specifically through suicide,” Ballen says. “Also, just a lot of things going on with life, our political surroundings—just the idea of waking up every day and existing. Things are just hard.”

Formerly a senior editor and the music editor at the Mercury, CK Dolan writes about music, movies, TV, the death industry, and pickles.