Published in the Quad-City Times on Oct. 25, 2023

This is a column about death. I’m sorry, but sometimes, we just have to talk about it.

Once, I thought I was done for in a barn in South Dakota. 

I was 17, surrounded by my entire family at my brother’s wedding, and in as good of health as a scrawny teenager can hope for. There was no physical cause for alarm, but yet, the clouds loomed over my head. It was a humid July evening, the sun was setting, and I convinced myself my sun was, too.

Anxiety about death is not uncommon, but it’s a funny not-so-funny thing. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been looking for signs. M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” type of signs. Jim Carrey’s “The Number 23” type of signs.

My favorite football team won a game? Must be the last one I’ll see. I share a tender moment with someone I love? This has to be the series finale. On that particular July day, I shared laughs with almost everyone I hold dear. And so the closing curtains creeped in from the corners of my imagination. 

The end has terrified me since I was a boy, when I listened to songs like Death Cab For Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” and Kid Cudi’s “The Prayer,” alarmed at how comfortable the two songwriters were with the darkness. 

I remember being seven, probably, and burying my head underneath the covers, closing my ears and shutting my eyes. I imagined the end in the dark, sensory deprivation of my twin-sized comforter. Where was it that Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard was following his lover into? Could I find it under this blanket? Was it cozy, terrifying, or a bit of both?

The question of death worried me, deeply. I’d write paranoid farewell notes to my parents, when the fear swallowed me up so badly at night that I was convinced I’d sleep forever.

At that barn, my heart raced and the rustic room spun. I stepped outside into a field, wedding reception noise humming from 50 yards away.

I wasn’t sure why, but it felt like that was the end. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. And in the years since, I’ve found ways to distance myself from that anxiety. 

For me, music is the great silencer.

Death anxiety still blares sometimes. The buzzards circle, but a good song can shield the noise. I’m not religious, but I am convinced there are church pews hidden somewhere in my headphones. 

This is a column about songs about death. 

Mount Eerie – “Real Death” (2017)

“My whole life I’ve been anxious about my own death,” writes poet and activist Ryan Thoresen Carson in a poem called “Anxiety.”

“That it could come while someone waits for me, that I couldn’t call to let them know I was held up.” 

Earlier this month, Carson was stabbed and killed in a random act of violence in Brooklyn, New York, after attending a wedding with his partner, Claudia. Carson is someone I’ve never met, but his passing has weighed on me heavily this month because the brutality of death lies in its unpredictability.

And the fact there are people who are left behind.

There is no record that describes that wake better than “A Crow Looked At Me” by Mount Eerie. Songwriter Phil Elverum wrote the album about the loss of his wife, Geneviève, to pancreatic cancer. It’s bare and explicit in its discussion of grief, to the point that as a listener, it almost feels like intrusive voyeurism, especially on album opener “Real Death.”

The only thing louder than sorrow on the album is Elverum’s love for his wife and daughter. There is something quieting in those moments. And there is bravery in Elverum’s decision to let listeners into his world. 

Saba – “PROM/KING” (2019)

Just as “Real Death” clings to lingering moments Elverum and his wife shared together, Chicago rapper Saba uses his high school prom night to memorialize his cousin and musical collaborator, Walter Long Jr., who was murdered in 2017.

“PROM / KING” is a 7-minute reflection on Saba’s evolving relationship with Walter. It’s a masterpiece of rap storytelling, and a reminder of one’s impact after death.

Jackson Browne – “For A Dancer” (1974)

If music is my church, “For A Dancer” is my doctrine. 

“Somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go, may lie a reason you were alive that you’ll never know,” Browne sings. 

There’s no way to know what’s on the other side, “For A Dancer” argues. There’s no way to know when the door will open, or why we’re here at all. And that’s okay. Do the best you can while you can. 

For my money, this is the best song ever written about death, life and everything in between. Jackson Browne is a gift, and so is the time we have.

Big Thief – “Change” (2022)

In “Change,” Big Thief songwriter Adrianne Lenker describes death as the necessary balance to life, likening the end to any cyclical change on Earth. 

“Would you stare forever at the sun?” Lenker asks. “Never watch the moon rising?”

As I watch leaves fade to red and yellow outside, I can’t help but understand her. Without autumn, would summer feel the same? Without death, would we ever live?

On This Daytrotter: Jason Isbell, Oct. 24, 2013

It’s this same argument that alt-country songwriter and former Drive-By Truckers member Jason Isbell makes on “If We Were Vampires,” through the finite perspective of a relationship. 

Isbell performed songs from his sophomore solo record, “Southeastern,” at Daytrotter Studios a decade ago, and four years before “If We Were Vampires” was released. The former album and session are outstanding, but the latter song is the most refreshing take on the end that I’ve found. 

“Maybe time running out is a gift,” he sings. “I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift, and give you every second I can find.” 

Sometimes, I still bury my head in the comforter, closing my eyes and trying to familiarize myself with the darkness. But sometimes, I nestle my cheek into the shoulder of the person I love, and close my eyes there instead. 

Concert of the Week: Becca Mancari & Bloomsday at Raccoon Motel

I’m learning to embrace the silence, even if death still scares me. Music helps — live music, especially, where the performer-listener relationship is at its most intimate.

This week, the best show I can recommend is at Raccoon Motel on Saturday. 

Becca Mancari is an indie rock veteran, whose 2023 record “Left Hand” is an ethereal, atmospheric folk trance. Bloomsday released their debut, the brief but poignant “Place To Land,” in 2022, which is a musical hug. Bloomsday is a “get in now at the ground level” type of songwriter, headed for inevitable wide acclaim. 

This is still a column about death, and I can’t lie, I hear the buzzards whirring sometimes. Last week, I traveled northward to catch Blitzen Trapper at Codfish Hollow. It was foggy, and as the gray skies rolled by my passenger seat window, I felt a pressure in my chest that threatened to obliterate all optimism. Surely, this was it.

But at the show that night, I watched opening band Good Morning Bedlam confront death with songs like “Blessed Boy.” Then, later, I sat on a damp, grassy hill while “Black River Killer” by Blitzen Trapper hummed from 50 yards away.

I laid my head in the lap of my partner and closed my eyes, listening. The stars above draped over me like linen. In that moment, outside a barn in Maquoketa, I was alive. This is a column about living.