Okkervil River :: Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas
When I lived on Kenmore we’d have a show in our basement every Valentine’s Day. We called it the Black Valentine party and we’d invite some friends to join us in performing acoustic heartbreakers to the 40-odd folks that would gather. Cats would pile-in, drinking, sit crossed-legged in silence in our dark basement, watching their pals belt out broke winter songs about the trouble we were in.
‘Cos we were in trouble. Working terrible jobs, living in crummy apartments, falling out of love fiercely. G had busted her teeth out, wasted riding her bike, and I fainted from the smell of her blood while S called Cook County. A was nine hundred miles away studying ducks. M had met someone in Tennessee who moved to our city and then it didn’t work out. As for me, I don’t think it’s fair to speak of the trouble I was in; that’s someone else’s story to tell. But worst of all, we each still believed that if we sang strong enough, maybe, maybe, somehow, something…
There are countless reasons I adore Okkervil River. Their sense of the basic musicality of language is totally unparalleled. I think the arrangements are brilliant; I think the care they take in borrowing from pop history is so smart. But I love this song, because I think everyone has a “Sarah in New Hampshire.”
Lover or friend or sister, the person we left behind forever, emotionally or geographically, because we thought we had somewhere else we needed to be. Sarah, the ghost that stands in as old home for us, to whom, in our dark hours, we imagine ourselves retreating.
M played the Otis Redding tune that Okkervil River borrows from here, on one of those Black Valentines. On those nights, we were trying, desperate, to make a kind of home there together. So we sang, asking our friends to be new Sarahs enfleshed and hoping they might convince us to continue remembering the now threatened dreams that had led us all there.
Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas (8.9MB MP3)
Okkervil River (homepage)
tina said on wednesday, july 09th, 2008
vj said on wednesday, july 09th, 2008
My blackened, broken heart still hangs on the wall and occasionally beats through my shirt…Luckily, though, I outlived the ducks. Soon after moving out of Kenmore I saw Elf Power and Okkervil River play at a tiny club near my digs: Incredible show!!!
aw man, that made me a little misty. I mean, I am pregnant and everything, but still.