Okkervil River – “You Don’t Love Me Yet” (Roky Erikson Cover)

Okkervil River – “You Don’t Love Me Yet” (Roky Erikson Cover)

Today, Amazon Music is releasing Love Me and Love Me Not, two Valentine’s season playlists featuring new music from American Wrestlers, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Xenia Rubinos, and more. We’ve already heard Joyce Manor and Tacocat’s contributions, and now we’re hearing Okkervil River take on the 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet” for Love Me Not.

Okkervil River served as Erickson’s backing band on his 2010 album True Love Cast Out All Evil, and that experience heavily informs their cover of the song. “In the early stages of producing True Love Cast Out All Evil, I was given a large amount of archival video and audio from Roky’s life, as context and for possible use in some found-sound collages for the noisier bits of the album,” Will Sheff explains. “I remember combing through them slowly and being deeply moved by a home movie of Roky performing ‘You Don’t Love Me Yet’ on an out-of-tune guitar. The song — especially in this performance — seemed to capture, for me, all of the wisdom and spirit and childlike tenderness that’s accessible underneath the more gruff and scary side of Roky’s persona. This version was recorded with the old lineup of Okkervil River, doing that home movie arrangement, everybody live in the studio, playing it once and moving on. It’s kind of like a snapshot of a snapshot.” Listen below.

Both playlists are available for streaming exclusively on Amazon Music.

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