New Single?!

[Kudos]

http://pitchfork.com/news/41088-okkervi ... ew-single/

"On February 8, Jagjaguwar will release the "Mermaid" single on 12" and digitally.

The single features two new songs: the title track and "Walked Out on a Line". The "Mermaid" single precedes Okkervil River's forthcoming follow-up to 2008's The Stand Ins, which is due later this year."

Edit for more info: For those wondering, this is apparently not the same "Mermaid" as was on the soundtrack for the film In Search of a Midnight Kiss.

[ddundy]

“Mermaid” is the darkest song you’ll hear all year: a self-contained fable shot through with evocative and disturbing imagery but rising to a sweeping, romantic, oddly moving climax. This waltz-time ballad gestures towards the tattered folk of Okkervil River’s beloved 2005 album Black Sheep Boy, but somehow unearths something much more mysterious and blurrily ambiguous.

With “Walked Out On a Line” we get a glimpse of what might further emerge. Choral and atmospheric and stripped of any of the acoustic textures that have defined much of the band’s past work, “Walked Out on a Line” is a smooth-sailing symbolist fever-dream, fractured and impressionistic lyrics floating over a sea of sighing voices, glittering rhodes, and a gently driving beat. It’s an ambitious statement about how much innovative fuel the band has to burn, an as fleeting a 5:20 song as you’re likely to hear.

[stevemuhkween]

we can haz seenglez?

[albinoboaoncoca]

I suppose we'll have to wait a few days to hear mermaid. Walk out on a line is up on youtube from the Living Room show with Bird of Youth, and has been for about 3 or 4 months. I think it's pretty safe to say that the original mermaid may have been used as a draft for this new one. I was thinking that it was the old one when I read the description on jagjaguwar. Glad to know it's not, as that would have been disappointing.

Lay of the Last Survivor was played about a year ago, in my current city of residence, tel aviv. Hopefully they'll tour through again, as I missed the first show and am still fiercely bitter towards anyone who didn't.

[Bless This Tiny Alley]

This single is all sorts of crazy. A new direction for the band, for sure.

[albinoboaoncoca]

I'm about to listen to it now, oh my god.

[XeeGen]

1st time listening: Meh
2nd time listening: Ok, Pretty good
3rd time listening: *tears rolling*

[w3stfa11]

They're going in a different direction than I had thought. I need more listens.

Anyone care to transcribe the lyrics?

[XeeGen]

I did Mermaid for some other site so I thought I'd post it here too. My first attempt at an Okkervil lyric so please help me out with some blanks

Mermaid

So I said, men pull her out of the water
and then lay all hands
and bind back her flippers and tail
until international waters and there we'll feel
all thats human inside of her

So she's chilly and slick
on her hips where the scales meet with skin
with a sickening flick of her tail sickling?
her gills fill with cold salty water
and she thrashes(flashes?) and twirls
her freezing fins fluttering

But she's pretty I think
with a hand(head) dark as ink
and her belly bone white
and lips of the slices she shall pink ????
and she's turning the tubs rusty rim as the salt
water it flows out ????

Oh farewell is to the land we know well
we'll never be touching again
too fields where we ramble and ran
farewell to our ??? children
let's stand on the deck and let's watch
they'll all dissapear

And the days all float by and the days over ???
and the sky and the weeks slowly leak into years
the last dams are all left behind as we silently sail
into late some dark night
a wild wind starts to wail
and our map blows away and our compasses fail

And it's out on the lost boiling black water
where see it float out just so thin and so pale
as you rise
oh shes so fast and so fair?
my hands needing they press to a point in the air
when my mouth fills with a panic

then ??? my skull fills with a color
then can my heart fills with rope?
too much love to bear and I know it I stay
but she'll always be there
my hands soak in cold sand seaweed strum through her hair

[cruzichick]

Today's Pitchfork interview with Will, where you can listen to the track:

http://pitchfork.com/news/41491-okkervi ... k-mermaid/

I feel sort of silly for not know that this was a non-LP track.

[stevemuhkween]

I didn't realize it was non-LP either. But that makes me happy. Even more great music ahead -- and I don't have to rebuy...

I love "Mermaids" and need a few more listens on the b-side. I don't hear it as as much a departure as some of you. Musically it fits pretty naturally in the sweeping realm of BSB, to me.

More, please!

[thuglifeforevs]

here are the lyrics i have so far.


so i said, man, pull her out of the water
and then lay on hands and bind back her flippers and tail
until international waters
and there we'll feel all that's human inside of her

so she's chilly and slick
on her hips where the scales meet with skin.
with the sickening flick of her tail
circling her gills filled with cold salty water
and she thrashes and twirls
ah the freezing fins flutter

but she's pretty, i think.
with her hair dark as ink.
and her belly, bone white.
and her lips of a slight seashell pink
lightly part
and she's tonging the tubs rusty rim
as the salt of the water it flows out of it.

oh farewells to the land we knew well.
we'll never be touching again.
to fields where we rambled and ran.
farewell to our wives and children.
let's stand on the deck and lets watch
they're all disappearing.

and the days all float by
and the days over waves under sky.
and the weeks slowly leak into years.
the last islands are all left behind
as we silently sail
until late some dark night a wild wind starts to wail
and our map blows away
and our compasses fail
and it's out on the lost bolliing black water
where i see her float out
she's so thin and so pale.
i see her rise up.
she's so fast and so fair.
my hands knead and they press to a point in the air.
then my mouth fills with a panicking prayer
my skull fills with more color than care.
then my heart fills with love
with too much love to bear.
and i know if i stay that she'll always be there
my hands soak in cold sand
seaweed swam through her hair

oh la la la la.
la la
la la la la

[thuglifeforevs]

and that is "boiling" not bolliing. haha.

[glreed]

I can't stop listening to this single!!!! The wait for the album is going to be excruciating. I don't know what to do with myself!