The Weather, a commentary, episodes 1-5 (Patreon)

I get asked a lot about the weather in Night Vale. Why is the weather music? Because I like music. For the first couple years of the show, the weather was almost entirely just songs I had liked for years and wanted to share with people. And so here I will give some commentary on those early weathers, and my history with them, starting with the first five episodes

These and More Than These by Joseph Fink

The first episode, more than anything, was made as just a test of concept. How did all of these elements sound together? And so, as someone whose father was a professional musician and who has done music as a hobby my whole life, it just made sense to put together the first weather. At the time, I had the idea that all the weather should be weird, and so I wrote a new song that was a kind of weird fiction story in song. By the third episode, I had abandoned this idea and moved to the current version: "song I like".

The Bus Is Late by Satellite High

Satellite High was a fellow user of the Something Awful forums, which is where I knew him from. He had a lot of great, more serious rap, but in these early stages I still had the idea that all the weather should be "weird" in some way, and so I chose this strange novelty track he made based on a well-known (at the time) internet user who was obsessed with buses and reported regularly on his bus experiences. 

The song became something of a viral hit in the early days of Night Vale, and it still will come up every time people ask about favorite weathers. This at first bemused, and then I think somewhat infuriated Satellite High, who wanted to be known and respected in indie rap circles, and not be celebrated for what, for him, was a throwaway joke track. Soon after this song took off, he quit rap, retired the Satellite High name, and started a podcast that appears to have just ended. 

Bill and Annie by Chuck Brodsky

As an early user of the internet with an interest in indie music, I used to do kind of the only thing you could do at the time to discover new music: I would order sampler cds and cassettes from indie folk labels. Then, if I liked a song from the sampler, I would order that artist's album. This makes me sound a thousand years old, but I'm not even 40. This is how we did it, as recently as the early 2000's. If you wanted to try a song, you mostly just had to order the cd, which also meant you got a bunch of other songs by the artist you could maybe fall in love with.

The first Chuck Brodsky song I heard was the incredible Acre by Acre. That led me to buy a few Brodsky albums, where I found this song, which is less catchy, but far more sad and memorable for me. This story about two people who could have had one life, but instead had a different kind of life, resonated with me. It's the kind of tragedy we all live. Not grand and operatic. But quiet, survivable, the kind of tragedy we just bundle away and then keep on living. 

Closer by The Tiny

I first heard this song on the Something Awful forums, on a subforum dedicated to just sharing music people loved. This is also where I first heard frequent Night Vale collaborator Danny Schmidt. I love this song, but also have never sought out more by the same artist. It's the new kind of song discovery, the opposite of the older process. It requires very little investment, and allows us to fall in love with songs without knowing anything about an artist, or ever hearing anything else they've done. 

Jerusalem by Dan Bern

The first time I heard this song it was not being played by Dan Bern but by Ani DiFranco. She did a cover at a live show, and I heard a bootleg. What is there to say about this song? The melody is repetitive, his voice is...fine, his guitar playing is...fine. But the lyrics are just so funny and strange and memorable, that it remains another weather regularly brought up when discussing listener favorites. 

Ok, there's episodes 1-5. Let me know if this is the kind of thing you're interested in and if you'd like me to do more, or if there's something else you'd like me to talk about.

-Joseph Fink