Okkervil River - The Stage Names

This was what truly moved me back in 2007 – the album that I still recall as my utmost favorite from the entire last decade. It’s especially significant for a tremendous amount of personal reasons but beyond that, it’s definitely one of the most gripping albums I’ve ever come across. With the imagery of the above hand in mind, it’s like the bitter struggle we battle through in life and about wanting more and more. I saw Okkervil River at Austin City Limits in 2008 and it was a surreal experience, one that will always be one of my fondest memories.

One of the major themes of the album is the band’s love for film and television. So in asking for a hand to take hold of the scene, the band requests having full control of their lives; to be able to manipulate fate, or whatever it is, to our own benefit. Will Sheff sings about how, “She rises up like a yawn, grips my heart like a claw, splits apart like a jaw, like an eye” and how we’d all love to just take control. There’s peace in the song, in realizing that we can longingly dream and want a “Love that is innocent, of that old cynical, covetous, cancerous vibe…and a beauty that annihilates all life.” I mean, that couldn't possibly be a bad thing could it?


I love how through the first eight songs you go follow this winding story that always seems to lead to some kind of broken soul’s despair. After everything is said and done, on “John Allyn Smith Sails” all anyone wants to do is go home. “And I hear the others all whisper, ‘Come home.’ I'm sorry to go, I loved you all so…but this is the worst trip I've ever been on.” Like their previous albums, the characters in Okkervil River’s music aren’t always the most cunning and dashing heroes but instead, battered and beaten lovers that never seem to get their way. Eventually the closure comes with sincere endearment, through the interpolation of the great Beach Boys cover: “I've folded my heart in my head and I wanna go home.” I could always relate to something as emotionally captivating as The Stage Names and call me an emotional, heart-on-the-sleeve bum but damn it, when it’s this good, who cares? – Bryan