BEN FOLDS: SONGS FOR SILVERMAN (2005)
1) Bastard; 2) You To Thank;
3) Jesusland; 4) Landed; 5) Gracie; 6) Trusted; 7) Give Judy My Notice; 8)
Late; 9) Sentimental Guy; 10) Time; 11) Prison Food.
The album sleeve photo is so outrageously
generic-hipster here that there are only three choices from the outset: either
the music is going to be suitably generic boring trash, or it is going to be a masterpiece of self-parody, or it is simply going to be a
masterpiece, because there's really no way that album sleeve photo could be
anything but a sarcastic ruse. The third choice seems like the unlikeliest of
the three — but give Songs For Silverman
a few attentive listens, and you just might start veering towards No. 3 all the
same.
My own first listen was a complete disaster:
the only thing I understood was that the album consisted exclusively of sentimental / melancholic ballads, nary a bouncy,
rhythmic pop hook in sight, let alone any possibilities of «rocking out», and
that kind of monotonousness would be hard to take even from a certified genius
like Paul (even before he stopped eating meat) or Elton (even before he sold
all his costumes). There were no new attitudes or approaches, either, though it
did look as if he took a few extra singing lessons; and the instrumentation,
once again, was completely dominated by solo piano, with sparsely scattered
guitar or string overdubs passing by unnoticed unless you were really paying attention.
The situation only changed by the third time, when
the music sank in a little bit and started dissolving the major prejudice —
namely, the one that Ben Folds is a good pop hook provider and a funny maniac
on stage, but a generally rotten troubadour. The particular song that did it to
me was ʽLandedʼ (and a good choice for first single from the album it was, too,
even though it did not manage to get too high on the charts). Relatively simple
lyrical message of transgression and redemption — but what a terrific musical
build-up, from the quavering vocal of the verse aided in becoming decisive by
the sharp piano chords, and right up to the "bye-bye goodbye" hook of
the chorus: a well-placed falsetto note or two can work wonders, but only if it
is well-placed, and I think this one
deserves an A+ for well-placing.
Then there was ʽTimeʼ — normally, I'd suggest
that artists that still go on writing
songs named ʽTimeʼ should be lined up against the wall, but this one actually
happens to deserve its own place of honor somewhat below, but not
light-years-far-from Pink Floyd's, Bowie's, or Alan Parsons', and again, much
of this has to do with the unbeatable falsetto hook, indeed delivered by Ben
Folds himself, even if he is being vocally assisted on the song by none other
than Weird Al Yankovic, for some reason. Not that there's anything weird about
the song itself — it is just a mid-tempo adult contemporary ballad with
complexly layered backing vocals, but the drama is so masterfully executed, mainly
through the contrast between "in time I will fade away, in time I won't
hear what you say, in time..." (strong, self-assured bit) and "...but
time takes time you know" — this
time, the falsetto actually means "PANIC!".
These two songs served as the anchor for
testing a hypothesis — what if Songs For
Silverman is actually a confessional masterpiece, Ben's own Plastic Ono Band, or Blue, or Blood On The Tracks, any of those things? For that matter, he would
only divorce his third wife, Frally Hynes, in November 2006, but it is quite
likely that things were flying out of control much earlier already, and
considering how many ladies ultimately failed to satisfy the man (he seems to
be taking his cue here from big idol Billy Joel), it might be argued that Ben
Folds marries and divorces mainly for the sake of getting fresh inspiration for
his material. And indeed, other than the first track and ʽJesuslandʼ, just
about everything here is about being
alone once again and trying to find different ways to deal with the trauma,
either by remembering, or by forgetting. But that is not important per se — the
really important thing is, should we
care?
I think that songs like ʽLandedʼ and ʽTimeʼ
provide ample evidence that we should. Yes, he may be building here on the same
territory that had already refused to yield to him several times earlier, but he's
either been taking songwriting lessons (next to singing ones) or perhaps the
feelings just got sharper, so that much
— far from all, but much of the album
— really cuts hard, and should be well recommendable for all non-suicidal
loners who want to heal rather than hurt, or, at least, use the hurt for
healing purposes.
It's really a brief conceptual travelog here. We
begin with some general morals ("why you gotta act like you know when you
don't know?") as a basic framework (ʽBastardʼ), start off at the far away beginning
when things were good and connecting (ʽYou To Thankʼ, although the song is
already permeated with sadness, so you know it's not going to be all that happy
from now on), take a sideways stroll to think about the futility of religion
(ʽJesuslandʼ), patch up our first batch of differences (ʽLandedʼ), and raise our
little kid (ʽGracieʼ — quite a charming little ballad to Ben's daughter). That's
the «still-okay» part of the business.
As we go to Side B, we discover that she's been
reading our secret diary (ʽTrustedʼ), declare that "I won't be your bitch
anymore" (ʽGive Judy My Noticeʼ), take another sideways stroll to say a
few words in memory of the recently departed Elliott Smith (ʽLateʼ — but
thematically, with its mournful farewell mood, the song fits in perfectly), share
a few last thoughts on how we used to be so similar, but the different has won
out all the same (ʽSentimental Guyʼ), make the transition to spiteful
bitterness in relations (ʽTimeʼ), and wrap it up with a grand finale (ʽPrison
Foodʼ) where Ben's quiet wailing ("alone, alone again!") is enveloped
in frantically thrown layers of percussion, piano, and steel guitar, as if the
idea was to create something on the scale of ʽLove Reign O'er Meʼ. Of course, that sort of scale is quite out of
reach, but a humble approximation is quite possible, and if ʽPrison Foodʼ will
not be able to make you feel sorry for the man, then you are probably immune to
Ben Folds as an organic character in general.
Some of these songs are worse than others, but the
fact that it all ties up so nicely kind of levels everything up: the highlights
never cease to be highlights, and the lowlights, whatever they be, are still
moody enough to fit the concept. The only thing that does not fit is the title of
the album — which, for that matter, was going to be dedicated to Ben's
representative at Sony (Ben Goldman), but, for reasons of confidentiality, «Goldman»
ultimately got split into «Silverman» and «Goldfish» (for the accompanying live
record). That, like the album photo, should be regarded as a proverbial red
herring, because the personal experiences of Ben Goldman have nothing to do
with the personal experiences of Ben Folds, or with the status of this album as
the ultimate breakup record of... well, let's say, of the year 2005, since,
after all, breaking up seems to be the
quintessential Significant Artistic Topic of the 21st century, families not
being what they used to be and all that. Anyway, a hefty thumbs up, of course.
Check "Songs For Silverman" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Songs For Silverman" (MP3) on Amazon
Weird Al also played tambourine with Ben on some late night talk show (I don't remember which), and Mr. Folds played piano on a Weird Al song. I'm not sure how all that started...
ReplyDeleteIs it true that this album has strings by Paul Buckmaster who worked with Elton John in the 70's?
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