I know I’ve brought up this band from Ohio before. I’ve been enamored of this husband and wife team (Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler) since I bought a little known CD, Good Dog Bad Dog, without having ever heard any of it. It turned into one of those CDs that you put in, then you move around a bit, cleaning, cooking, whatever… then stop, sit down and just listen. You might not even breathe. I didn’t.
They’ve since released quite a few more CDs and while some of the others stay in rotation nearly as much, GDBD hardly ever leaves. I love the entire thing.
One of my favorite songs on that CD is Everyman’s Daughter. In fact, you can listen to the entire song right here!! OtR MP3 Attic It’s number 4.
Listen all the way through– you won’t be sorry.
“There’s so much of us in each other. If I hate you, you’re my best reminder of all I wish I was. I hate you just because I’m every man’s daughter… I am hurting someone just like you.”
Make sure to check out the other MP3 offerings on that page. (Especially Thank You My Angel– the rest of that CD, The Darkest Night of the Year is all Christmas) However, they do offer Over the Rhine Radio on the main page. overtherhine.com You have to enter the site because the load page has the new live CD. Some of the songs I mention here play all the way through on their radio.
If you feel like visiting the site a little longer, you can hear clips of GDBD
OtR Good Dog Bad Dog (Back Porch) though the clips have a much better sound on Amazon Amazon.com: Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings: Music: Over the Rhine
And for a real treat, visit the poetry pages. (The link is at the end of this poem) Here’s an example:
Grace Asked A Question
The bottom line is the spilled wine
The ruby lake on the table
Dripping on my knees
Like the tears of the blind man
Who newly sees
The bottom line is the familiar ache
Too real to shake
Too hard to explain
Too easy
Like a prism of colors in the rain
The bottom line is the warm blood
That seeps its way out of my cold heart
To the beat of a drum
Always carried
All the time
Always a rhythm rhyming inside
Making of me a tall awkward song
The bottom line is the sometimes welling up in the eyes
That the noisy world
All too eagerly dries
With whatever it happens to be selling
At the time
Or is the bottom line this?
Beauty and terror on a blind date
Moving each other close
Dancing a slow motion universe bending down sarabande
Locked staring each into the others eyes
As if for the first
Or the lastTime
The bottom line is some unknown unspoken word
I need another word
For that which comes out of nowhere
So good
Like a smiling child
Glimpsed in a room full of strangers
A room full of good things to eat
As if it has all been somehow prearranged:
She’s smiling at me
Even though we both know
We’ll never meet
. . .
copyright 2001, Linford Detweiler found here OtR Selected Writings of Linford
Some of my other favorites are…
Films for Radio. The first song, The World Can Wait, has some of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard. You can listen to a long clip here. OtR Films For Radio This CD is more pop than their others.
Ohio –Double Disc. This might be my second favorite OTR CD. You can hear all the clips on Amazon Amazon.com: Ohio: Music: Over the Rhine Jesus in New Orleans is such an incredible song. It has an old time folk, country, blues– even gospel feel. It’s a different sound than their norm, but still a cool song. “The road’s been my redeemer. I never know just what on earth I’ll find.”Suitcase gives me goosebumps. Lifelong Fling is so freaking good, I end up repeating it four or five times before I can move on. “I wrote down a dream. Folded a note. Slipped it in the pocket of my tattered coat. I wrote down a dream in invisible ink. It never was mine I’m beginning to think.” I couldn’t try to slip this CD in any category. Too many genres are covered and both CDs are good.
“You are my water,
You are my wine,
You are my whisky,
From time to time ”
Very mellow, stripped down offering recorded in their living room. Jazz, country, rock and pop. Another one you can’t just pin down. Amazon.com: Drunkard’s Prayer: Music: Over the Rhine
And if you ever find out they’re in a town near you, run. I’ve heard the live show is something to see. I wait for the day they make their way to Oklahoma. 🙂 Update: hahahah I mean run “to them.” Not run away.