The weather has turned cold in this area of the world, so that means it's once again the perfect time of year to listen to sad bastard music. This is "Western Sky" by American Music Club off of their excellent (and lamentably out of print) 1988 album California. Mark Eitzel is one of the masters of writing depressingly beautiful songs without drowning in self-pity or resorting to cliche. "Western Sky" is a damn-near-perfect piece of musical imagery - it evokes empty, wide-open skies and solitary drives down barren stretches of highway in the American west.