Vic Chesnutt hedges his mortal bets, in "It Is What It Is"

December always make me think about the brilliant Vic Chesnutt, who took his life on Christmas Day 4 years ago.

From Chesnutt's song "It Is What It Is," a kind of atheists psalm:

I’m not a pagan
I don’t worship anything
Not gods that don’t exist
Nor the sun which is oblivious

I love my ancestors
But not ritually
I don’t blame them or praise them
For anything that they passed along to me

I don't need stone altars to help me hedge my bet
Against the looming blackness
It is what it is

The performance below took place just weeks before he launched himself into that 'looming darkness.'