Black

Will Sheff wrote "Black", the fourth track of Black Sheep Boy, 4:39. PopMatters's Patrick Gill said in 2025 that its lyrics are darker than its upbeat tone suggests, and that it is remembered more for the tone than for what lies hidden beneath; a fan favorite. Stereogum called it rollicking and anthemic, a carnival-like keyboard melody against its lyrics. Tiny Mix Tapes noted in 2006 that "For Real" and "Black" were the two songs free to download from the band's website, probably the disc's most rollicking tunes. We found no account from Sheff of the song itself, no single or chart history and no video.

Setlist.fm lists it as the band's fifth most played song, 157 performances of 573 setlists when we looked (a search snippet said 152), behind "For Real", "Unless It's Kicks", "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe" and "Lost Coastlines". An official live version, recorded on October 10, 2018 at The Garage in London, 5:34, is on A Dream in the Dark (digital on September 18, 2020; ATO box set on October 30, 2020). We could not check covers or samples, and could not tell whether our upload is the studio version.