My favorite kind of Random Weekend selections are the ones that are a complete mystery to me, despite the fact that I once bought or otherwise acquired the album years ago.
It’s both a chance to (re)discover new music, and a reminder of the fickle nature of memory. How is it that I once spent the time and attention required to add an album called Ash Wednesday by an artist called Elvis Perkins to my iTunes library, but my brain has completely erased any record of such a thing ever happening?
So who is Elvis Perkins? He’s an American folk rock musician and son of late actor Anthony Perkins (which is a nifty coincidence, given that I’m writing this post immediately after rewatching his father’s most iconic performance in Psycho).
Perkins lost both of his parents tragically. His father died of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 60, and his mother, photographer Berry Berenson, was a passenger on one of the hijacked planes that hit the World Trade Center in 2001.
Perkins’ debut album, 2007’s Ash Wednesday, is split between songs written before and after the death of his mother. The title refers to the emptiness he felt on the day following her death.
Today’s track, unsurprisingly, comes from the album’s second half.
There is enough
Sadness for the
Both of us
Follow the sound
To the table underground
There will be plenty
Tears goin’ round
And I would be happy
For you to stay
With me ’til tomorrow
Can become today
In a sad world
In a sad world
But when you leave
My powders and my teas
Will speak
Their heads off to me
Here everyone knows
Their own name
In a sad world
No two are the same
‘Real soon’, assures the spoon
‘Watch out!’, says the time
Water, give me water
‘Remember me’, begs the rhyme
Of a sad world
Of a sad world
Meet Me In Montauk 
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