What HAIM Filled That I Didn’t Know Was Empty

Danielle, Alana, and Este Haim grew up in the San Fernando Valley playing in a family band with their parents, covering Fleetwood Mac songs at local venues before any of them were old enough to drive. That origin story explains everything about how Days Are Gone sounds—loose and lived-in, like music that’s been rehearsed so many times it stopped being rehearsal and became something else entirely.

If I Could Change Your Mind is one of the album’s quieter moments and maybe its best. Built on a guitar line that drifts rather than drives, Danielle’s vocals sit on top of it with a kind of tired certainty—she already knows how this conversation ends before it starts. The song doesn’t push. It stays. Then it’s over and you play it again.

2013 was HAIM’s year in a way that felt almost corrective—like pop music had finally embarrassed itself enough to make room for something that meant what it was saying. They filled a space I hadn’t noticed was empty until they were standing in it. I’ve played this band more times than I can count since and I still can’t say exactly why it works the way it does. That’s usually the sign of something worth keeping.