The Weather, a commentary, episodes 12-16

This is continuing my very occasional track by track commentary on Night Vale's weather. If you'd like to read the commentary on the first 11 weathers.

Of A Friday Night by Anaïs Mitchell

This was before Anaïs would become world famous for writing Hadestown. I knew about her because of her album The Brightness which she released on Righteous Babe, Ani DiFranco's record label. At the time, I was a huge Ani fan and would give any album that came out on Righteous Babe a listen. The Brightness is a gorgeous album, and when I reached out to ask if I could use the song, Mitchell said yes. And then I fucked up and accidentally credited the song as being called "The Brightness" instead of "Of A Friday Night." Oops.

You Don't Know by Mount Moon

Back when these episodes were being released, I was living off the Bedford L stop in Brooklyn. The Bedford station was a popular place for buskers, and there are at least a couple Night Vale weathers that I first heard busking on the subway. Mount Moon is one of those. Here's a video of him performing the song on the subway platform at the time. He has since changed musical genres and artist names a number of times but as far as I can tell this is his bandcamp if you want to check out what else he has done.

Movement 1: Invocation of the Duke by daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra

A few of the weathers are people I learned about through my sister (Erin McKeown, most notably). This is one of those. Honestly, the rest of the album is a take or leave for me, but goddamn this song slaps.

A Little Irony by Tom Milsom

Welp. Listen, sometimes people seem cool and then turn out to be sex pests. Tom Milsom was an early fan of Night Vale and around this time, I had a drink with him in London and he seemed, you know, fine. His career was just starting to really take off. And then it turns out he's a sex pest, so we removed this weather and replaced it with Carrie Elkin, who is a good friend of mine, a saint of a woman, and a great musician. Listen to her instead.

Those Days Are Gone and My Heart is Breaking by Barton Carroll

I have no memory of how I found this song, only that I had been listening to it for a while before Night Vale even happened. I have a weakness for sad folk songs, which I'm sure anyone who has listened to the weathers has noticed, and this one is real sad and real folky. I like that the pov of this song is an absolute piece of shit, which the song does not try to avoid, but also asks that you feel empathy for a person, even if their problems are their own fault.

Ok, that's it for 12-16. I'll do more later!

Joseph Fink