Volume One is the Loneliest Number: She & Him: “Black Hole”

The actress and singer, Zooey Deschanel and the musician and producer, M. Ward teamed up to form the alt-country/pop duo known as She & Him. Their first release, 2008’s aptly titled Volume One, consists of 13 songs (nine of which Deschanel penned, one she co-wrote, and three covers). Their sound, which often feels sunny like a Southern California beach (boys) day, is often offset with Deschanel’s overcast lyrics, as represented in the opener, “Sentimental Heart” and this track, “Black Hole.”

“And it just gets/So foggy/It’s nowhere in here/And it’s everywhere else/That I don’t want to be/But I’m stuck here/Getting misty over you/I’m alone on a bicycle for two.” It’s this last line that creates such a vivid image of a lonely someone newly single. Deschanel takes that idea of the tandem bike, which has traditionally been seen as an innocent, happy-go-lucky activity shared between two people, and veers it off course.

She also incorporates inclement-weather-related terms (“rain” [in my head]; “foggy”; “misty”) as analogous descriptors for obsessive mental “spinning,” confusion, and sadness, respectively. “Black Hole” conveys how difficult it can be to move forward, not just literally, for a bicyclist without a riding partner, but emotionally, for this “she” in the song now finds herself without a “him.”