Nostalgia and Longing

While “Black Coffee Blues” is understood to be set in the modern day, it revolves entirely around the concept of looking backwards. This is established right in the opening epigraph, a quote from a 1940s jazz standard. It suggests that the speaker is seeking the emotional connection and comfort of times gone by. The speaker creates a mental image of a recurrent scene which the song evokes: “a dozen stubbed out cigarettes, window shade askew from so much time spent staring streetside” (1.2). Although it doesn’t exactly describe a positive moment, there is a romanticism to the image which has become rose-tinted in retrospect. The second stanza emphasizes this idea even further: “fingers embracing some worn out pillow where, after all else failed, old memories could be briefly roused” (2.2). This suggests that the speaker is clinging to these memories long after they’ve disappeared...