Nothing a Pair of Sissors Can't Fix

Have you ever read John Berryman's poetry? Half of the indie rock songwriters in the world have been reading his stuff, and you should too.

Berryman was rock & roll. He wrote ragged, emotional poetry, breaking rhyme scheme and rhythm rules in the most amazing ways.

Here's Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds wailing about writing and postmodernism and John Berryman's suicide. We Call Upon The Author (track via Snuh's LiveJournal).

Of course, The Hold Steady needed to talk about Berryman too. Here's a live version of "stuck between the stations," punctuated by the amazing line: "There was that night that we thought that John Berryman could fly. / But he didn't so he died" (track via Captain's Dead)

Finally, here's Okkervil River riffing off the Beach Boys and singing about John Berryman's last days. It's called John Allen Smith Sails, and was one of my favorite songs last year (track via Mixtape 4 Melfi).

I'm not the only person who thought about this. Brandon Stosuy wrote an essay about The Hold Steady and Berryman, called, excellently enough, How a Resurrection Really Feels.

Finally, for your weekend listening pleasure, Bob sends along a song from 3/4ths of the band, Grizzly Bear. It's Department of Eagles, composed of, according to the press release, "Daniel Rossen from Grizzly Bear with his friend Fred Nicolaus, plus assistance from Chris Taylor and Chris Bear also of Grizzly Bear."

Here's the title track, In Ear Park.