music

first i want to say i've decided that i want to start dumping some inspiration/things i'm really into at the moment here. i'll test it out for a while and see how it goes. if it's distracting, i might start a tumblr blog where i can dump those things. i'll try this for a bit, and then ask opinions.

back to the post. so, as you can see by my little "currently on repeat" section, i absolutely cannot stop listening to okkervil river's "the war criminal rises and speaks." there's another song i love on this particular album (down the river of golden dreams), so i think i've typically sort of skipped over or not payed attention to the first half of the album. for some reason this week, however, i've been obsessed with this song.

when i went to see him at the talking music lecture series, will sheff (lead singer of okkervil) talked about how he likes to write about characters and sort of portray them in a very human way, even if on surface level they aren't good people. this song is talking about someone who does things they never imagined they'd do in a time of war, and now 30 years later he's being put on trial. this particular verse is my favorite i think...

Now he’s rising and not denying, his hands are shaking, but he’s not crying.
And he’s saying “How did I climb out of a life so boring into that moment?
Please stop ignoring the heart inside, oh you readers at home!
While you gasp at my bloody crimes, please take the time
to make your heart my home, where I’m forgiven by time,
where I’m cushioned by hope, where I’m numbed by long drives,
where I’m talked off or doped. Does the heart wants to atone?
Oh, I believe that it’s so, because if I could climb back through time,
I’d restore their lives and then give back my own, tens of times now its size
on a far distant road, in a far distant time
where every night I’m still crying entirely alone.”