Due to my recent week-long vacation, I’m getting a late start on the Broken Hearted Toy tradition of posting scary songs throughout October. I’ll try to catch up and hopefully, add a few new entries to numerous profiles I’ve offered over the years. Most of them would be fun additions to a Halloween party playlist, but occasionally, I get kind of atmospheric. Here’s the first Halloween song profile I ever wrote for Broken Hearted Toy, all the way back in 2009.
“Jacksie” is the first track on Patience, the 1992 debut album from Over The Rhine. The Cincinnati-based band, founded by vocalist/guitarist Karin Bergquist and bassist/keyboards player Linford Detweiler, has garnered critical acclaim for decades by setting thought-provoking lyrics to inventive folk, country, and indie rock arrangements. Detweiler based this song on theologian C.S. Lewis’s book, A Grief Observed, spinning the author’s heartfelt reflections on the loss of a loved one into a compelling and beautiful ballad.
Still, a casual listener could be forgiven for thinking this is a classic ghost story. Especially with lines such as, “They laid her in the ground./She still comes around./A love that never dies takes you by surprise.” Bergquist’s ethereal vocals, set to a serene arrangement, sends chills up the listener’s spine, especially when her “la la la la la la la” echoes like you’re traveling through a dark forest.
Over The Rhine continues to perform and record impressive music, and hosts the Nowhere Else Festival every summer.
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