The Friday song (on a Sunday): ‘Lost Coastlines’ by Okkervil River

Will Sheff of Okkervil River can be a deeply forlorn singer and a maudlin musician. I love that about him. He’s a clever lyricist too.

Listen for example, to how much fun he has on Plus Ones, the perfect track for a music obsessive like me, who wants to spot all references, hearing him sing about the fictional 100th luftballon, the 51st way to leave your lover, being “nine miles high” or “TVC16”. 

While Sheff can rock pretty hard, he can lighten up too, as he does on today’s song, Lost Coastlines. While it starts with acoustic guitar and some clawing banjo, it takes just a few bars until the introduction of a pulsating bass line, which transports you from contemporary folk to the finger-popping 1960s hit by The Supremes, You Can’t Hurry Love.  

Take the journey

On Lost Coastlines, frontman Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg create a vocal dialogue about what was to become the departure of the latter from the band. Whether the song is about the obvious seafaring voyage, or the more metaphorical life of a band on the road, its sound is in dialogue too, pairing a contemporary folk-rock take, with that familiar 1960s sound. You’ll even hear handclaps, used so well by the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland and mixed in as a “nod” to their 1960s-style production, I’d assume. 

Okkervil River has been on rotation for me this week. Lost Coastlines has so much going on. A pace-setting, rhythmic acoustic guitar, some treated honky-tonk piano, a cutting electric guitar bed that is mixed back but ebbs and flows like a tide, plus brass, strings and then to close, lots of “la, la, la”. 

The Stand Ins, the album from which Lost Coastlines comes, followed The Stage Names, which was probably a better record, darker and in part, almost tragic. That said, if you don’t know this band, Lost Coastlines is an easy start before launching into Okkervil River’s catalogue. Go explore them and you’ll be well rewarded. 

Listen to Lost Coastlines on Spotify here and on Apple Music here.

I started a music WhatsApp group in 2023. I send one song a week on a Friday, with links to both Apple and Spotify, and an accompanying narrative/capsule piece. If you want to engage about a song, get a playlist or just get in touch, email me on markgrosin@gmail.com.

For more of Mark’s great track selections, go here.

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