Lost Coastlines

I confess that on several nights after normal days and almost every night after a bad day I take my iPod to bed with me and listen to music. For the last several weeks I’ve listened to the same playlist of my favorite Okkervil River songs and started with one song in particular:

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It’s the first track on their most recent (until this May) album, The Stand-Ins. The first few times I heard it I didn’t care for it at all — I couldn’t stop comparing the arrangement to the end of The Arcade Fire’s Wake Up which I was more familiar with. Months later I started to pay more attention to the lyrics and now it’s one of my favorite songs by any band.

On the surface the song is about boarding a ship bound for unexplored territory. A deeper meaning that I gather from Wikipedia and interviews is that it represents the constantly touring lifestyle of the band and specifically singer/songwriter Will Sheff (“look out at each town that glides by/And there’s another crowd to drown in crying eyes”).

To me there’s a third layer, where the song is about all of our lives in general. Right from the beginning it’s about being born and living: “Packed and all eyes turned in”, and follow along with the analogy from there. If there’s a purpose nobody reliable is telling us about it, and instead of thinking about it we either do our own thing (“Is that marionette real enough yet to step off of that set”) or just waste time consuming and arguing about nothing (“We just go la la…”). The latter really resonates with me and I had some fun with the la’s in the lyrics below. To not sound too pretentious I included some of my favorite la’s among them.

I always feel better after I create something, which for me has typically been some code for a project or my job. The days when I create something are the ones I’m less likely to take my iPod to bed. I’m going to give blogging a try to see if I can get a similar feeling.

Enough commentary, hit play and follow along with the lyrics. I hope someone enjoys this as much as I do these nights.

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Packed and all eyes turned in,
no one to see on the quay, no one waving for me:
just the shoreline receding
Torn ticket in my hand I'm thinking 'Wish I didn't hand it in.

'Cause who said sailing is fine?
Leaving behind all the faces that I might replace
if I tried on that long ride?
Looking deep inside but I don't want to look so deep inside yet'

Sit down, sit down on the prow to wave back
There might not be another stop further on the line
Look out, look out at each town that glides by
And there's another crowd to drown in crying eyes

And see how that light you love now just won't shine
But there might just be another star
that's high and far in some other sky

We sing, "Is that marionette real enough yet
to step off of that set to decide what her dance might be doing:
ruining the play to in the ensuing melee escape."

We packed up all of our bags
The ship's deck now sags from the weight of our tracks
as we pace beneath flags black and battered,
rattling our swords in service of some faded foreign lord

We sail out on orders from him
but we find the maps he sent to us don't mention lost coastlines
Where nothing we've actually seen has been mapped or outlined
And we don't recognize the names upon these signs

And every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and wide
Well we have lost our way. Nobody's gonna say it, alright?
We just go la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la la la la

La la ...

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If you’re still here, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ge-Cz1xCGU!