#70 (of 365) "Black" Okkervil River

This is an interesting song. The best version I've heard of it is the live version, recorded at Schuba's in May 2005, and that's the version in my playlist, the one I go back to all the time, that lands here at #70. Not that the album version isn't great, but the power that comes through the live track is so much stronger, better.

I wrote a short story in MA Writing school based on this song's lyrics. It won me a prize for fiction. I haven't read it in a while, and the story--about the abuse of child by her father, part of a recollection to her brother years later while smoking a cigarette in a restaurant--is something I wouldn't attempt to write now, because I would fear I didn't have the capacity, or agency, to write that particular story, since I had never been abused. But it obviously had nothing to do with me--it came from this song, and this song is from the POV of the person being told the story of abuse, so it's also removed, but I did include a few (discreet) flashback scenes from the young girl's POV that would likely be considered something I shouldn't have written.. I haven't revisited in years so I don't know how well it was written, whether or not it could have/should have survived the flashbacks being removed, if I chose to write that now. But I'm glad it exists. I'm glad it won a prize. And I'm still touched by this song.

Baby daughter on the road,
You're wrapped up warm in daddy's coat.
And I can still see the cigarette's heat.
I can't believe all that you're telling me!
What is cutting like the smoke through your teeth as you are telling me "forget it"

But if I could tear his throat,
And spill his blood between my jaws,
And erase his name out for good, don't you know that I would?
Don't you realize that I wouldn't pause,
That I would cut him down with my claws
If I could have somehow never let that happen?

Or I'd call, some black midnight,
Fuck up his new life where they don't know what he did,
Tell his brand-new wife and his second kid.
Though I tell you, like before,
That you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours,

You want no part of his life anymore.
Oh Cynda Moore.

Don't lose me now, let me help you out.
Though I know that I can't help anyhow,
When I watch you I'm proud.
When I tell you twice before
That you should wreck his life the way that he wrecked yours,
You want no part of his life anymore.
Oh Cynda Moore.
​
And it'll never be the way it was before,
But I wish that you would let me through that door.
Let me through that door.

"Black (Live)" - Okkervil River // Okkervil River Live at Schuba's 5/13/2005 (2005)