Singer/Songwriter Iris DeMent’s song, “Let The Mystery Be” was recorded on her 1992 album “Infamous Angel.” The song, eerily enough, almost perfectly portrays the plot of the 2014 HBO drama “The Leftovers.” The TV show “The Leftovers” is based on the sudden disappearance of 2% of the world’s population, on October 14th, 2011. The following 3 seasons are based around how the remainder of the world adapts to living after 140 million people unexplainably disappeared. Since nobody can seem to figure out the true answer as to why the disappearances took place, it’d probably better that they just let the mystery be. The irony is the reason the producers of “The Leftovers” decided to make “Let The Mystery Be” the shows theme song for the second season. From: https://genius.com/Iris-dement-let-the-mystery-be-lyrics
Born in Arkansas and raised in Los Angeles, Iris DeMent has a voice with a vibrato-infused twang that purrs and bucks, and her songcraft has always remained full of heart and earthly spirituality. This song, which opened her outstanding 1993 debut, Infamous Angel, is an object lesson, weighing ideas about heaven, purgatory, and the afterlife, then sensibly throwing up her hands: “No one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me/I think I’ll just let the mystery be.” It launched a marvelously unconventional career that’s veered from gospel standards to protest songs to an LP inspired by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (The Trackless Woods). “Let the Mystery Be” would become a standard of its own; one recent cover was delivered by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy on his Starship Casual Substack. From: https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-200-greatest-country-songs-of-all-time-60414/luke-combs-beer-never-broke-my-heart-60427/
