B-Side Guys

Arthur James became houseless at the start of 2025 and couldn’t properly care for his son Jun-fan, who lived with his two sisters—Athena, a 13-year-old cat, and Sadie, a 3-year-old pup. Rather than separate the boy from his sisters, James made what he calls “the wildly difficult decision” to leave Jun-fan in his mother’s care. “Little Buffalo,” recorded live with a full band of Seattle musicians, is the first single from his forthcoming EP BYOC, chosen because it serves as a precursor to the project’s central subject: grief.

What Does “Little Buffalo” Mean?

The song operates as a direct address to his son, opening with acknowledgment of forced absence: “There is a dream inside your head / Under the crown I placed up on it / And I cannot now be in that dream / You will carry on without me.” James doesn’t dramatize or justify—he just states the reality that he’s been removed from his son’s internal world. The promise that follows—”if your sisters say my name / You can call and I’ll come running”—hangs on a condition that might never happen, particularly as time passes and memory fades.

The self-description as “only in the in-between / of the Autumn and the Summer” captures transience and seasonal displacement. Not winter (permanent absence) or spring (renewal), but the liminal spaces where temperature shifts and nothing’s stable. The outro’s instructions—”Dream, my son,” “breathe in / And grieve out,” “Pray, my son”—read like a manual for processing abandonment, however unintentional.

James explains that exploring these hardships and transforming fragilities into form became “something of a responsibility. One that I’m not certain I’d still be here without.” Sometimes making art about loss is the only way to survive it.

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For more on father/child relationships and emotional voids, check out Bird’s “Daddy”