Prompt: "The last song that the artist ever made before they died"
Selected by Frank
"(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay"
Otis Redding
The Dock of the Bay, 1968
I don't know what lyrics Otis would have put into this song where he left the long whistling as a place marker. We will never know. Obviously. Maybe the lyrics would have elevated this song even higher than the all-time great pop songs it already is! But somehow, I don't think so. I think it might be the all-time perfect happy accident. Redding, of course, died in a plane crash three days after the recording of this version, but even without knowing that, there is something beautifully sad about this song in a way hard to explain. I feel like it's heightened by the whistle, which always makes me feel like someone is hiding/fighting some pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment