Okkervil River Combine Poetry and Violence at Lollapalooza

Okkervil River got things off to a murderous start. The Austin band opened with "The President's Dead" and immediately continued on a bloody pace with the violent wishfulness of "Black." Yet to frontman Will Sheff and a horde of attentive onlookers, it was all just part of a literary act in which sharing misery with company became reason to celebrate and shed any ill will. Rarely has dismay sounded so joyous. Sheff introduced an Ivy League literary seriousness to jangly street-busking pop, rhyming lyrical couplets and chronicling character predicaments as he told stories of loss and retribution. By the end of the performance, he'd loosened his tie and sang with the intensity of a spurned preacher, promoting the escapism of "Unless Its Kicks" as universal truth.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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