7 June 2023 - The Black Keys - Everlasting Light

This is the story of an RIAA Gold-certified song with a long shelf life.

In 2010, Ohio duo The Black Keys released an album called Brothers.  It had the best cover artwork.

I wonder who made this album or what it's called.

That album also won a Grammy.  So did this album packaging.  That's a true story.  

They released three singles off that album.  The first was a minor hit, making it to the Billboard Hot 100 and achieving Gold status - a notation celebrating 500,000 sales of the single by the Recording Industry Association of America (the aforementioned RIAA) in late 2011.   

That song was, of course, called "Tighten Up" - itself a Grammy-winning song - and was not this song. In fact, none of the three singles was this song.  

  

This song was the leading track on the Brothers album but not released to radio as a single.  And, in 2010 and 2011, since singles (mostly digital at this point) got radio airplay, and that was what determined song longevity, as well as chart performance, that was that.   

Two years later, that was different.  Billboard put less weight on single sales - no longer making a physical single a requirement - and more on streaming, with YouTube streams and others including the song being included in the charts. This means that songs could hang around longer, and different songs could get attention.

In late 2014, Electronic Arts released their yearly version of their NBA video game.  This game was NBA2K15 and it was a hit.  

I figured at this point, you'd want to see the Dunk of the Year from that game.

Yes, this song featured prominently on that soundtrack, and videos from that game got shared to YouTube, which means this song got listens, which translated to listens on services like Spotify and iTunes, which led to sales of the single.

In 2019, "Everlasting Light" was finally certified gold (a year after "Tighten Up" was certified platinum) and remains a fan favorite song.  

Let's talk about this song.   It's a bluesy three-chord masterpiece, with a lot of fuzzy guitar.  But what is the song about?  Some people think it's a love song, and I can see that intepretation.   I see it differently.  I point you to Isaiah 60:19

The sun will no more be your light by day,

    nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,

for the Lord will be your everlasting light,

    and your God will be your glory.

The song is about God.  In fact, many of the songs on Brothers were clearly about the band's faith.  

However you see the song and its meaning, it's an absolute masterpiece.