Top Tune #8

This Top Tune is brought to you by our dark bedroom.

I heard this song for the first time not even a year ago. I hadn't even heard of Andrew Bird before hearing it. I quickly fell in love with this song, listening to it over and over. I had the habit of listening to it on repeat while sitting in bed in the dark. I was in my third trimester of pregnancy then, and it was pretty common for me to just crawl in bed after coming home from work.

This song is so sad that I can barely stand it, but I truly think that melancholy songs are some of the best out there. It's also a cover of the original by the Handsome Family, but Andrew Bird's version blows the original out of the water, in my opinion.

And just in case you're interested, the song is about the tallest man in recorded history.



The Giant of Illinois by Andrew Bird

(And you can download it here. For free. That's where I got it from.

You can also download more Andrew Bird tunes here free of charge. You're welcome.)

Lyrics:

The giant of Illinois
died from a blister on his toe
after walking all day through the first winter snow

throwing bits of stale bread
to the last speckled doves
he never even felt his shoes filled with blood

delirious with pain, his bedroom walls began to glow
and he felt himself soaring up through falling snow
and the sky was a woman's arms

a boy with a club foot
had sat next to him in school
once upon a summer's day
they went wandering through the woods

they spotted a sleeping swan
on the banks of a muddy stream
and they stormed it with rocks
till it collapsed in the reeds

they lay out on the grass
full of chocolate and lemonade
but underneath it all the giant was afraid
the sky was a woman's arms