Things I Like: Okkervil River (part 1)

I had a hard time deciding on a topic for this second to last Things I Like for now. I’d always planned for the last week to be a long-ish post about Okkervil River. This one was going to be Breaking Bad, my favorite TV series that’s on the air. But like last week‘s comments about How to Train Your Dragon, I don’t know what a post should look like. I just like it, ok?

Then I was going to do 24. It would have been fitting to have the two TV posts be Lost and 24, since those were my two favorite shows for a while. I even made something I’ve had finished in my brain for years: a chart that tracks my rating of 24′s varying quality over its eight seasons. I posted that chart tomorrow and the shockwaves of embarrassment were so profound that they traveled backwards in time and made me rethink my choice. If anyone leaves a comment with the exact text “I want to see the 24 chart” they will get their wish.

So, instead of one long-ish Okkervil River post it seemed better for you and me to have two not-so-long-ish ones. Let’s

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begin.

Okkervil River is a band from Austin, Texas. They’ve released six albums, the most recent being I Am Very Far this week. I only found out about them last Summer but I’ve bought every album and EP, giving each in turn my careful attention before picking up another.

I wish I could say that the journey began in 2002 when I was talking to these interesting people in a local record store. It actually began in 2010 when I was in my cubicle checking Facebook for some important research. This guy who probably did hang out in a record store in 2002 had found out about Okkervil River and was taken by it enough to share a link:

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The way he discovered the band as I was told later is interesting: he was on vacation with his wife and two kids and stayed up watching TV after those three went to bed, flipping eventually to Okkervil River on Austin City Limits. If he’d just gone to bed with his family, or something else caught his attention before he got to that station, or if he’d decided not to post a music video link which few people actually click on, I would have missed out on this music that inspired the blog that you decided to read for whatever reason of your own.

Anyways, I really liked the song and had a lot of respect for the tastes of that guy (accusations of a man crush would be hard to deny), so I went to Amazon to order the album. I’m always a sucker for the alluring “Add just $xx.xx more to receive Super Saver Shipping on your order” so I had to pick out a second CD. A quick check at Wikipedia revealed that

The Stage Names (Amazon iTunes) and The Stand Ins (Amazon iTunes)

"The Stage Names" and "The Stand Ins"

were two parts of a double album that were released in 2007 and 2008. They share a common theme which is to adopt the persona of a modern musical performer or actor. Some of the songs are sung with this overconfident swagger that is off-putting to me at least, but it’s intentional irony. The artwork on the albums can be put together to form a picture.

What stood out after a short time with The Stage Names and remains my favorite thing about Okkervil River in general is the quality of the lyrics. Every song is written and sung by the same person: Will Sheff. The words are sung with enough clarity to make out for the most part in a single listen, but there hasn’t been a song I haven’t enjoyed more after I read along with the lyrics which are presented in increasingly beautiful form in each album’s booklet. On more than once occasion (here is a new example and and here’s is an old one) I’ll be listening to a song that I don’t love, catch a line that piques my interest, listen again with the lyrics in front of me, and come away with a new favorite song.

Even though it has some songs I don’t really like (yet?) and is probably my least favorite album, The Stage Names has a few of my favorite Okkervil River songs: Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe which is embedded above, Unless It’s Kicks:

and John Allyn Smith Sails which is based on the suicide of real poet John Berryman:

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By the second verse, dear friends
my head will burst, my life will end
So I'd like to start this one off by saying: live and love

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Right now I like The Stand Ins more, though it took several listenings to get to that point. This blog is named after my favorite track:

Others are Blue Tulip:

and Pop Lie:

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By the backroom the kids all waited to meet the man in bright green
who had dreamed up the dream
that they wrecked their hearts upon
He's the lier who lied in his pop song
and you're lying when you sing along

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Black Sheep Boy (Amazon iTunes)

Black Sheep Boy

At that point I hadn’t liked what I’d heard enough to go straight back to Amazon, but at the same time I had a vague desire to pick up this album which had been mentioned in a comment on the infamous Facebook link by a person I don’t know but imagine to be legendarily cool. My favorite store in Raleigh is Ed McKay Used Books & More, which I used to go to to buy NES games before I realized that I wasn’t playing them for more than a few minutes. They also sell movies, books — if you have kids you need to see their kid’s section: bedtime stories for less than $2 galore — and CDs. My like of Okkervil River was enough to make me flip through the O’s with the hope of finding Black Sheep Boy, and inexplicably there it was: the only Okkervil River CD on the shelf. This wasn’t Green Day’s “Dookie” or Nirvana’s “Unplugged in New York” I was looking for, so I still think of this find as more than coincidental somehow. I was so in awe of this CD’s journey to my home that I gave it to someone who was going through a hard time who had heard it in our car and liked it (it had been imported to iTunes, of course). Let’s hope its journey continues, wherever it is going.

I agree with that friend of a friend: Black Sheep Boy is an amazing album; one of those that’s complex and has more to reward you with each listen. Like The Stage Names/The Stand Ins, there is a unifying theme/concept, this one based on an eponymous folk song (read up about it if you want — I’m glad I’m not a music reviewer who has to write their rewording of this kind of stuff all the time). The tone is mostly somber. The lyrics of several songs describe different aspects of the black sheep boy, a mythical creature who steals children and takes them to a secret garden. Sometimes the singer identifies with or is him and sometimes he talks about slaying him. It’s like a puzzle to piece together, except I’m not sure if it all comes together as a nice picture or is supposed to, so the enjoyment is in the constant piecing. An EP with more songs, Black Sheep Boy Appendix, that was released after the album is probably my favorite Okkervil River release. It will come up in part 2 of this post.

My favorite songs include For Real:

A Stone:

and The Latest Toughs, which is about the perils of blindly following anyone without thinking for yourself:

In the middle the music dies down and the lyrics are spoken:

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And I don't know what notes you wanna hear played
Can't think what lines you'd like me to sing or say
Not sure what subjects you want mentioned
So just pause and add your own intentions

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In the liner notes the line “pause and add your own intentions” is written as “write your own intentions” with several blank lines to write them right there. When the band’s website had lyrics to every song — now it’s in new album mode and only has tourdates and store links; I hope the old site comes back — the line is changed to ask that your intentions be emailed in. Just something cool.

If I were going to buy one Okkervil River album, it would be the “definitive edition” of Black Sheep Boy that includes the Appendix songs. [As of this writing, the MP3 versions of all of the albums are only $5 on Amazon. At this price the Black Sheep Boy definitive edition is the best $5 you could ever spend on MP3s.]

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Down the River of Golden Dreams (Amazon iTunes)

Down the River of Golden Dreams

Another album, another purchase motivated by something on Facebook. I’m trying to go to that site less, I promise . This time I didn’t see something about the band, but saw a mention that it was Support Your Local Business Day. We were in at my parents’ for Thanksgiving and that day happened to be the best one for that most glorious of perks when you have kids and visit your parents: the date night. After dinner at The Olive Garden — in retrospect we probably could have chosen a more appropriate local restaurant — I stopped at Allied Record Exchange on Reynolds Rd. in Toledo. I’m going to call it the Toledo Ed McKay minus books plus more new items. Same drill as before: I went to the O’s and there was one Okkervil River album which happened to be one I didn’t have. If you thought I was making too much of my Black Sheep Boy find, how do you explain this?

Down the River of Golden Dreams is one album earlier than Black Sheep Boy and one later than their first record which I’ll get to next week. Besides having some of my absolute favorite tracks, I enjoy its overall simpler arrangements — often there’s only a piano, a guitar, drums, and vocals of course — compared to the more elaborate songs on later albums. There is a series of four songs in a row in which each is so good that I can’t believe it was made. I won’t reveal where this begins so not to spoil their discovery.

Favorites are The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Confession which is about dying:

The War Criminal Rises and Speaks which is about living in a world that has evil, which I couldn’t find a video of that’s nice to listen to — if you’re still reading buy the album yourself

and Seas Too Far to Reach which I like enough to give it its own post.

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Part 2 covers the first record and the EPs and singles that were released between the albums. I also talk around the newest album and explain what that means.