“Black Cloud” by Postdata – A Song Review

     “Black Cloud” has an eerie, almost haunting vibe that would be suitable for a soundtrack of a drug smuggling movie. The song ends with thunderous percussion and demands of “Give me the drug.”

     “Black Cloud” is a song from Postdata, a supergroup fronted by Paul Murphy of Wintersleep. Other contributors are Grant Hutchison and Andy Monaghan (both of Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit, which sadly lost its frontman), Simone Pace (Blonde Redhead), and Wintersleep’s Loel Campbell and Tim D’Eon.

     The song is one of ten tracks on “Let’s Be Wilderness” which is available via Paper Bag Records. Quoting content from the label’s site:

  “I want my body back: Mama, I’m contaminated,” Murphy submits wearily on the chorus. The imagery came from a dream in which his bedroom was consumed in a dark cloud, while the lyrics developed after he watched a documentary on soldiers returning home with PTSD. The film depicted how some soldiers repurposed their uniforms into pieces of art as part of the healing process. It struck Murphy as “trying to change the meaning of the symbol for them and to be able to create and dictate the meaning of their uniforms in their own terms.”

  The track is a window into a key tenet of Murphy’s songwriting: empathy. “It's kind of told from the perspective of someone who is trying to empathize or help someone who is in a desperate headspace,” he explains. “I've always been intrigued or interested in arriving at a place of empathy in a situation you can't really understand.”

     “Black Cloud” by Postdata

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisispostdata/

Website: http://www.postdatamusic.com/

Lyrics of “Black Cloud” by Postdata
She can't get out of her bed

The big black cloud

In the river of her head

Little by little by little

Just a little bit

It enters the room

Behind the eyes

You can feel the mind slipped

Flow to the spine

It doesn't matter what you did

Little my little by little

Just a little bit

It starts to consume

I want my body back

Give me the drug

You say you never had

Give me the drug

You say you never had

Give me the drug

My mind's contaminated

Give me the drug

You think you never had

Give me the drug you say

You never had

Give me the drug

There's nothing outside

There's nobody left

There's nowhere to hide

Nowhere to run and to forget

No one to find you

If you ever try to

And nobody tries to

Sand in the sky

Drowning in the wind

Look in my eyes

Mama I've been contaminated

Little by little by little

Just a little bit

Can you forgive me?

Can you forgive me?

I want my body back

Give me the drug

You say you never had

Give me the drug

You think you never had

Give me the drug

Give me the drug

My body

My mind's contaminated

Give me the drug

You think you never had

Give me the love

You say you never had

Give me the drug

Give me the drug

Give me the love!

Give me the drug!