Josh Dunn’s “Don’t Look Away” comes from the same place as this whole I Love My Friends project — holding onto something you know you’re losing.

He traces it back to the first time he saw Those Lavender Whales at Conundrum Music Hall, when a room full of twenty-somethings found themselves singing along to something deeper than it first appeared.

“They didn’t believe me, but that was kind of the magic of it,” Dunn said. “Aaron had a bunch of jaded 20 somethings bouncing and singing songs about our inherent goodness and childlike joy and love as a glue that holds us all together.”

That era of Columbia music stuck with him.

“It felt like everyone was just playing dress up with their friends, and that a little dash of silliness was always in order,” Dunn said. “It taught me a lot about what I wanted to accomplish as an artist, and Those Lavender Whales was a crystal clear example of how you don’t have to self-destruct to make good art. You can be good and honest and caring and play with puppets and fake beards and the art that comes from that can change the whole game.”

That perspective carries into “Don’t Look Away,” a song rooted in loss.

“It’s hard to bear losing beautiful things,” Dunn said. “I wrote ‘Don’t Look Away’ as a sad little song about opening your heart to the big world-ending griefs. It was my way of processing all the unprocessable losses and a reminder that to be present with grief is sometimes all we can do. That you will be burned up in it but that that’s okay too.”

Set against the Hunter-Gatherer mural the performance lands exactly where it should.

“Being a part of this project means the world,” Dunn said. “It is just the perfect example of taking loss and turning it into community, joy, and rad art with your friends.”