Steve Hochman on February 20th, 2018

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When she’s “down so low there’s no lower you can go,” Eleni Mandell still finds a way to go a little lower. Down the Angels Flight funicular from downtown L.A.’s California Plaza to the Grand Central Market, to be exact. And she takes her twin kids with her. But going lower brings her up. At least that’s the case per the video for her new song “Don’t Forget How Good It Is.”

In the clip, directed by Jeremy Cohen, she reminds herself that there are positive things to cherish, lip-syncing the song’s lyrics in front of Disney Concert Hall, the new Broad Museum and in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art — all along a couple-block stretch of  Grand Ave. But its scenes of her and her daughter and son strolling through the market that really illustrate the goodness, as they people-watch and sample some of the foodie treats along the way. Anyone who’s been there knows the feeling, and anyone who hasn’t, well, let’s just say this video might be useful for the L.A. tourist board.

The song, though, the fourth to be released in a digital singles series that commenced in January, was inspired by a very specific event that made her feel a real need to convince herself there is good in the world. She wrote the song right after the 2016 election, with a dream that it would be a good one for Mavis Staples. “I think she’d sound great singing it!” she says.

And hearing the swampy soul groove of the track, it’s easy to imagine Staples’ gospel power on it. But Mandell gives it her own, relatively understated, spin, effectively so, the hopefulness of the theme tempered by the skeptical concern of the moment, and pretty much every moment since. There’s optimism, but guarded optimism. Heavily guarded. Maybe it comes from being a parent. Or maybe it comes from being a human. Mandell has long had a talent for getting those complexities in her songs, and for making it personal.

“It was really a way for me to comfort myself after what felt like such a loss personally and nationally — maybe we don’t have to get political, but it’s really what I was thinking,” she says. “It was really a way for me to remind myself that life is full of joy and beauty. Sometimes we need reminders.”

One big reminder of the good stuff came for her a couple of months after the election in the form of “Unsung Heroes: Songs of Eleni Mandell,” a tribute album put together by long-time friend (and fellow Living Sisters member) Inara George. Among those digging into gems from her 11-album catalog were Jackson Browne, Van Dyke Parks, Harper Simon, Mike Viola and the other two Living Sisters, Alex Lilly and Becky Stark. That release was accompanied by a concert at the Bootleg Theater with many of the album’s performers on stage, with Mandell’s own closing set featuring the debut of this song. It was the love and support from that community of artists that spurred her to write new songs in the first place, resulting in the unfolding singles project. And that’s a very good thing she won’t forget.

||| Watch: The video for “Don’t Forget How Good It Is”