Living in Loss's House

A Meditation on Jeff Black's "Sunday Best"





It starts with some of the most emphatic piano this side of Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis", arresting playing that captures your full and complete attention. Then the opening lyrics "wheels go round and round/it seems like we/never stop to rest" which start small-like a camera filter slowly opening-before expanding enough, unfurling really, to let us know what the occasion really is-a wake.

"People came from miles away/just to say goodbye"

Black perfectly captures the blunted feeling of loss that comes with a death (the full on pain comes later, when the shock wears off) and how the house feels when that happens, that awful unmoored feeling.

"What are we going to do now/was never said out loud".

I have lived in that house and can bear witness to the truth of that line. Perhaps the most powerful line of all though, one that I only discovered after many listenings, after I got past the bigger and splashier, "the Lord respects me/when I'm working hard/but he loves me when I sing" is "but his watch and/ his ring were gone". Such a simple observation that expresses it all-the complete and utter wrongness of the death of the beloved person, now forever gone.

Yes, it's a sad song but one I am happy to listen to. Repeatedly. Along with Patty Griffin's "Long Ride Home", it's one of the best songs I know about death's aftermath. And because I keep choosing new favorite lines and discovering new nuances, I'm sure it's one that will stay with me for some time.



You can check out more about Jeff Black at his website http://www.jeffblack.com/.