With “I Miss Mikey”, MURS ends his album Have A Nice Life with an ode to a fellow emcee, an underground legend, and a friend.

In honor of the late, great, and incredibly talented Eyedea (and to the dearly departed in general), MURS created “I Miss Mikey”. Over a somber yet hopeful instrumental by Jesse Shatkin, MURS breaks down the effect that death has on his psyche, and how he, in turn, honors their memory.

We talked to MURS to get his perspective on the song, in which he revealed how Eyedea’s passing brought him more tears than close family members.

Tell us about “I Miss Mikey”.

“I Miss Mikey”, I made a song about someone who’s been dead or lost in your life. Unfortunately, I’ve lost and buried a lot of friends of mine. I feel like for our side of things, there hasn’t been a “I Miss My Homies” or “Gangsta Lean” or “So Many Tears” or “Smile”. I listen to all those songs when I go to funerals. I just wanted to do something that kind of represented that vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FySj_IqitQc

For me, recording with Jesse kind of brought back those feelings. Being on tour with the ¡MURSDAY! tour, Jesse was like “You should write to this beat! You should write to this beat!” I was like “I don’t know what to write to this. It’s so like, deep-feeling. I just get up and I miss my friend Eyedea some days.”

I had lost homies that got shot and went through different shit and got locked up. I remember one day I got up and I was bawling, just crying. My wife was like “What’s wrong?” and I was like “I miss Mikey, so much.” I didn’t talk to him every day, but just knowing that he’s not in the world made me so fucking sad. I buried my next door neighbor, my brother, you know what I mean? And that didn’t affect me. My dad, my stepdad. Shit didn’t affect me, but Mikey, aw man. That still hurts my heart.

It just reminds me that in this life you can choose your family, and the good part of it is that you can make a bond with someone that close, and the bad part is that the more friends you make, the more often you’re going to lose them. Even now, we went to Minneapolis for Soundset and Mikey’s mom, I took my son to meet her, because I thought it was important that my sons know his mother and get to be in the house and the room that I met this amazing individual.

I remember a story about Mikey. I put him on Rock The Bells, on the Paid Dues stage, and he was so into Kimye Dawson. She did the soundtrack for Juno, that’s what she’s most famous for. He was like “MURS, have you heard Kimye Dawson?” He was the first person to put me on The Beatles. I was like “Fuck The Beatles. I don’t listen to that white shit,” and then I kind of got into it. I put him onto Sublime. He was like “I kind of respect Sublime!” He was very intelligent and very into music. I thought it would be beneath him, but he was like “I really like Bradley and I really feel what he was saying.” So we kind of bonded there that summer. He was like “You love Kimye? I love Kimye.”

Slaughterhouse was on the tour too and he would try to tell Joe Budden about Kimye Dawson and I was like, “Bro, you can’t just go up to Joe Budden or Joell Ortiz like ‘Yo! Have you heard of Kimye Dawson?’ You got to chill!” Or go up to Busta Rhymes and tell him about this folk singer. He wore the same Adidas from the day I met him I feel like til the day he passed away. He was just him. He was Mikey.

Anyway, I went to Kimye Dawson’s house when I was on tour one day she hit me up on Twitter, and told me and my wife, “Yo, you want to come out to my house and eat eggs fresh out of the chicken’s butt? I’ll cook for you!” She cooked for my whole tour in the morning in her house. Her daughter Panda was there. We had a great time and I had her sign a record for Mikey. I was like “This is my friend. He loves you. Two years ago on Rock The Bells that’s all he would talk about. Please sign this for Mikey.” She signed it for him. I did Soundset that year and brought it to him and he had just done a poetry book with his grandma. That’s the kind of guy Mikey was. So, I met his Grandma, we talked about the poetry book, I gave him the record, my wife met him, and then he passed away. She had heard so much about Mikey so I’m glad she met him.

Like I said, it’s not like someone you meet everyday, especially on social media. We keep in touch with so many people, so I wanted to make that song in honor of him, or in honor of anyone that you’ve lost that you feel a special connection to. People were like “Why are you so sad? It wasn’t like your brother or sister!” Friendship and the human experience – sometimes you just have a bond with someone and it’s unexplainable. There’s more people out there like that, so you have to continue to make friends and you have to continue to tell the stories and make sure that memory lives on. While I was writing that song another one of my friends died. I feel I had to document it because I feel weird. Talking to my friend Jesse that I’ve known for 20 years, he doesn’t have the same stories. So for all you that seem to be living in this cloud of death, it’s a good thing because you bear the responsibility of keeping that person alive. So don’t let it make you completely dark. That’s what the song’s about.

• What do you think about “I Miss Mikey”?
• What’s your favorite song for remembering the departed?

Let us know in the comments section below.

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MURS – HAVE A NICE LIFE