The Overcoat

CREDIT: Written, performed by me

I wrote this song after finishing Gogol’s short story about an overcoat. I started thinking about the way objects become associated with the people that used them. And so, out of these thoughts came a song about a man who’s lover has left leaving behind an overcoat. The song is written from the perspective of a new lover, resigned to the fact that her man spends his night clutching a coat, waiting for its owner to return.

(Piano, voice, melody, and lyrics were written and performed by me)

Lyrics:

Verse:

The overcoat hangs in the closet by the stairs

Many years, many years it gathers dust

And he wonders if it’s cold where she has gone

Part of him cares, part of him fears that it is not

Chorus:

But wondering gets old and when she gets cold that is when she will return

When he will finally learn all her reasons

Everything is packed, everything he lacked, he carries on his back each day

Regardless of the days or the seasons

Don’t you know, he would do anything for you?

All you’d have to do is say the word!

All that you’d have to say is ‘please just wait, just one more day’

And he would wait out all his days for you

When he thinks that I don’t know he puts it on

But the moths ate away traces of you

There’s a part of him I know I’ll never know

Living in the pockets of the overcoat