4:15
Duncan Sheik, 1996
Written by Duncan Sheik
Duncan Sheik died a few days ago, way too young, of cardiac arrest, In the mid-1990s, the era of grunge, wistful pop, and the one-hit-wonder, Sheik was beautiful, talented, and on top of the world. I, being an angsty Dylan-loving curmudgeon, dismissed most everything on the charts by virtue of their existence on the charts, so this megahit never seeped into my consciousness. I doubt I ever listened to more than a few seconds of it, despite being in college at the time of its apex. The acoustic guitar and soft drums form an upbeat melody covering a melancholy mood; the narrator, like so many lost young men, can't explain even to himself his attraction to a damaged soul. The lyrics are introspective and, if not exactly poetry, reasonably clever: "You really had me going, wishing on a star / But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far / I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn / It must've been that yesterday was the day that I was born." Sheik was cut down too early, but it's not a bad legacy to have created something people are appreciating three decades later.
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