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Okkervil River R.I.P. Lyrics
Hey, my little baby, pointing at the sky’s amazing in the lake now.
All of this sensation and no space on earth to place it where it’s safe now.
You’ve got a big day coming, a big day coming now.
Gather crowd around me in the gutter where you found me. Help me stand now.
My body, it is aching, and my poor old heart is breaking, and I’m so freaked out.
We’ve got a big chance coming, a big chance coming now.
All the little Sadies and the literary ladies, wish me well now.
A slob upon a plane that through the air is silver swaying into sun now.
I hightail my cool haircut through the turnstiles of the airports, on the run now.
Flip a couple hundred pages, I was turning 38, I was a horrible sight.
You’ve got a bad day coming, a sad day coming 'round.
I’ll wear a white suit and black sunglasses to the last mass now.
Okay.
Then give me one last kiss in your pink silk dress, I guess.
Said "I have lost all will," oh, with my face pressed against your breast.
And I have pilfered the king's pills from the palace medicine chest.
I cried a quart of crocodile tears onto Allison Anne’s pink champagne glass.
I was escorted from the premises for being a mess.
And it’s just like when John Howe told me how the Force MDs died:
Lou Gehrig’s disease laid T.C.D. low; Mercury had a heart attack back in ‘95;
And when DJ Dr. Rock went nobody knows.
I see my grandfather T. Holmes "Bud" Moore laid up in his hospital clothes,
But I think about Judee Sill dying in some trailer park out of cocaine and codeine all alone.
It was a big waste, brother. Such a big waste, yeah, I know.
They had some great songs; must have been a great time so long ago.
Oh, but I didn’t open up my mouth just to piss and moan.
No way.
All the air is glittering. I went and hit the skating rink alone now.
I watched the kids all skim across the ice. They looked so nice. It was so cold out.
And then I coughed into my cupped hands and crossed the rink so I could hear the band:
Two guitars, a drummer, a chick singer with a Kurzweil on a keyboard stand.
And I said, "play that cover." I said, "play that cover song again."
All of this sensation and no space on earth to place it where it’s safe now.
You’ve got a big day coming, a big day coming now.
My body, it is aching, and my poor old heart is breaking, and I’m so freaked out.
We’ve got a big chance coming, a big chance coming now.
A slob upon a plane that through the air is silver swaying into sun now.
I hightail my cool haircut through the turnstiles of the airports, on the run now.
Flip a couple hundred pages, I was turning 38, I was a horrible sight.
You’ve got a bad day coming, a sad day coming 'round.
I’ll wear a white suit and black sunglasses to the last mass now.
Okay.
Said "I have lost all will," oh, with my face pressed against your breast.
And I have pilfered the king's pills from the palace medicine chest.
I cried a quart of crocodile tears onto Allison Anne’s pink champagne glass.
I was escorted from the premises for being a mess.
Lou Gehrig’s disease laid T.C.D. low; Mercury had a heart attack back in ‘95;
And when DJ Dr. Rock went nobody knows.
But I think about Judee Sill dying in some trailer park out of cocaine and codeine all alone.
It was a big waste, brother. Such a big waste, yeah, I know.
They had some great songs; must have been a great time so long ago.
Oh, but I didn’t open up my mouth just to piss and moan.
No way.
I watched the kids all skim across the ice. They looked so nice. It was so cold out.
And then I coughed into my cupped hands and crossed the rink so I could hear the band:
Two guitars, a drummer, a chick singer with a Kurzweil on a keyboard stand.
And I said, "play that cover." I said, "play that cover song again."
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The theme of a once-cool person getting older is pretty typical for a rocker turning 40, maybe even worse for an Austin musician that remembers how cool it was there in the 90s and doesn't recognize it now. But like all Okkervil songs, it's two sided: getting old and lonely and drunk and defeated is ugly, but he recognizes in the first and last verse the wonder of childhood, the magic of the weather and travel and music... ending on that note, music is amazing, even if it's a new generation's turn to have their minds blown. There will always be cover songs, the perfect symbol of nostalgia and being satisfied with the echo of cool after cool has gone.
The title is funny. "Formerly cool" people often compare turning 40 to dying (see James Murphy, Pete Townshend lyrics) but they're almost always tongue in cheek, obviously there is a lot more time left to have fun and reflect.