Every human being is adrift. No matter how rooted we tell ourselves we may be, we inevitably come up against those moments that remind us how little we know, how little we belong, how isolated we are and very likely will always be.

And so we create. We write, we paint, we apply our minds to equations or scientific conundrums, we dream idly or pluck away at a guitar. Not ultimately because we are lost, but because we are human, and we want to not be lost. And even if we never find our way out of the morass — late capitalism is adept at burying us in it — the hope that we might is enough to keep shuffling on.

That hope was what David Berman’s work was. You could say it about so many other poets or songwriters, but there was something about him that exemplified it. His languid, sloppy singing and guitar-playing, his detached-yet-playful use of words, his ability to paint landscapes and scenarios that ached to be more than they were.