Black Star, "Thieves in the Night"

There was a brief window, perhaps 10 to 15 minutes, when I loathed “Thieves in the Night.” It was in an inconspicuous classroom during an inconspicuous college lecture on Politics and Literature. A student raised his hand to comment on some motif in The Brothers Karamazov, and, when he lowered it, a symbolic starting gun lodged deep in his mind fired. He verbally chased himself for minutes, touching endlessly on unconnected topics. The ramblings of a less-tortured Ivan. During This Speech, he multiply referenced “Thieves in the Night.” I assumed I was the only other person in that room who got the reference. It was our silent comraderie I loathed.

“Thieves in the Night,” fittingly, can help explain my condition best. A socioeconomics lesson couched in a philosophy utterly in and of itself, Black Star’s most dense track explores the lives of thieves, yes, though imagine neither masks nor guns. These are thieves of essence, of soul. And the song does not describe any robbing, as you might expect; rather, it explores “hiding.”

It is a matter, as it so often is, of “waiting.” Of being dictated to. Of being out of control. Biding time, chasing “illusory” satisfactions. “Money” will run out, remember. It’s a “mirage,” a “camouflage” for ills with horrific roots. Creativity won’t satisfy. Forces demand you remix and “sanitize the old shit.” A bleak reminder: “You don’t control this.” Resistance is futile, as “we are subjected to the will of the oppressive.”

Listeners are witness, then, to the tactics of an “endangered species.” “Gats” are fired, smiles are “empty,” and the cemetary slowly fills. “God” is evoked - But will He help? Can He? Here? And now?

“Stars shine bright, but the light rarely stays on.”

There is as much in “Thieves in the Night” as in The Brothers Karamazov. It deserves more than anecdotal status. That student did not understand this - and, critically, I was beginning to realize that neither of us could. So I crept to self loathing, a thief in the daylight.