Within The Next Few Hundred Weeks

Okkervil River “Mary On A Wave”

About two thirds of the way through this song Will Sheff asks “are my eyes now closed or opened?” If songs could have a nut graf, this would be it for “Mary On A Wave.” The music is gentle and soothing, with a chorus that feels cautiously optimistic, but Sheff’s words are uncertain and possibly delusional. I hear it as a song about feeling happy and safe, but worrying that it’s all an illusion. You need to feel a thing, so you manufacture the feeling as a survival instinct. You suffer from emotional anguish, so you self-medicate with love and religion. The sentiment is a bit cynical and pragmatic, but I don’t think that’s in the music. All I hear in the sound of it is empathy and affection.

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