Initially conceived in 2023 as a collaboration, it has since become something far more poignant: an elegy, a gathering place, a moment of suspended time where absence and presence coexist.
First written at Sounds from a Safe Harbor, a residency in Ireland for interdisciplinary musical collaboration, the track was shaped by a constellation of artists: Niamh Regan, Ye Vagabonds, The Staves, JFDR, and Memorial. A shared sense of exploration and possibility drew all together, but at its core is Talos’ unmistakable voice anchoring the song’s swirling, atmospheric world.
When Talos passed away unexpectedly in August 2024, the song’s purpose shifted. Arnalds, alongside friends, collaborators, and Eoin’s family, chose to complete it, weaving together voices that had once sung alongside him. The final recording, featuring SinfoniaNord’s sweeping orchestration and a choir of close friends, feels less like a traditional track and more like a living testament to grief and gratitude.
“We Didn’t Know We Were Ready” carries the hallmark delicacy and emotional precision of Arnalds and Talos’ oevre. The song unfolds like a quiet revelation built around soft piano arpeggios, gently surging strings, and hushed choral harmonies. There’s a weightlessness to the arrangement, as if the song itself is holding its breath, suspended between moments of doubt and quiet acceptance. Lyrically, the track is a meditation on the unknowable.
“In the night we sang to storms / Before the peace that breaks at dawn,” may have been about creative uncertainty. Now, it reads as something deeper, more universal. The refrain, “What if the dreams were ours to keep?”, carries an ache, but not without hope. The song does not answer its own questions. Instead, it sits with them, letting them echo.
Before its official release, “We Didn’t Know We Were Ready” had already found an audience. A spontaneous lobby performance at The River Lee hotel in Cork introduced the song in its rawest form – voices unamplified, harmonies cascading through the space. Later, a deeply moving performance on The Tommy Tiernan Show in January 2025, just five months after Talos’ passing, would solidify the song’s place in collective mourning.
It is rare for a song to exist so fully in both presence and absence, to be so much about someone who is no longer here, while still feeling so completely alive. But perhaps that is the point. The song does not ask for a resolution. It simply allows space for what remains.
By Caroline Whiteley
