there’s no such thing as cool
and we’re gonna pull through
Over the Rhine makes music for married people. It’s hard to describe without having absorbed a half-dozen or so of their songs. There’s both an utter confidence in and comfort with their own style, no hesitance to the lyrics and every note is deliberately placed. I’ve liked their music for a long time, ever since Rebekah let me borrow Films for Radio at the youth conference, but it’s acquired a new depth and resonance since becoming married. Perhaps, when I was single, I liked them in a “prophetic” sense, anticipating the time when the music would flesh out through experience? Who knows. Many couples have “our band” or “our song,” and I really believe OtR is Diane’s and mine, from singleness (Good Dog, Bad Dog) to courtship (Ohio and especially Drunkard’s Prayer) to married romance and turbulence (Snow Angel and The Trumpet Child).
Part of the connection has to be the fact that the band members, Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, are married in actuality, and surely much (most?) of their music reflects their own day-to-day as a couple. We have got to see them in concert. We’ve come so close several times…
i’d rather feel your heat
on a wicked winter day
than watch a holiday parade
with dancers and balloons
we’re gonna pull through
you hold me just the same way
levon would play
and “the weight” is my favorite song
we’re gonna pull through