Big Thief’s “Black Diamonds” appears on the band’s second album, 2017’s Capacity. It’s a love song, I suppose. But I can’t tell if the song’s about a relationship worth keeping or one to flee. Perhaps it’s a bit of both, a relationship through which one discovers one’s self, while also learning that what’s out there to discover is a bit shattering. The song’s chorus seems to make this clear.
In your eyes, black diamonds
I could die, black diamonds
In your eyes, black diamonds
I could die, black diamonds
And I wake up in a cold sweat on your ceiling
Terrified of what your love’s revealing
“Black Diamonds” is also a song about a bird. And not just any bird: the Whip-poor-will, a bird with long and enduring meanings in American music and lore.
The Whip-poor-will appears in “Black Diamonds” slowed down bridge. It’s not, as usual, the bird’s song that appears. Rather, it’s the pursuit of the bird itself–
The cold of winter warms my blood, and he’s hot like a bed of steel
He finds his peace of mind in the rivers and the Whip-poor-wills
I could follow close behind and slowly disappear
But I can never leave him, I can never leave him
In this contradictory mix of images, the song’s couples appear in tension. Emotionally opposed, one wanders in solitude (with the rivers and the Whip-poor-wills), and one following (but at what cost?). On the surface, the song’s Whip-poor-wills carry a fairly traditional meaning; they signify a person alone. This is an old meaning. (Hank Williams didn’t invent it, but he made sure it endured in Americana.) But Big Thief’s Whip-poor-wills are a little different. It’s the singer of the song themself — not the “I” of the lyric but the other, the “he” — that goes looking for that most iconic bird. And it’s peace, not lonesomeness, that he finds in the Whip-poor-will.
Header Photo by Sina Katirachi on Unsplash
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