Earlier today I was reading a Graham
Greene novel and came across this exchange between two fictional high
level administrators of a British intelligence office as they lunch
together at club near the office:
“I like the food at Travellers just as much,” Hargreaves said.“Ah, but you are forgetting our steak-and-kidney pudding. I know you won't like my saying so, but I prefer it to your wife's pie. Pastry holds the gravy at a distance. Pudding absorbs the gravy. Pudding, you might say, cooperates.”
Upon reading this sentiment, I thought
of the songwriter David E. Williams because it is the sort of thing
he might say were you to have lunch with him at one of the many
gastropubs in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown where he
resides. Although, to be honest I don't know of any such
establishments that serve kidney pie or pudding and I couldn't say
whether Mr. Williams is a pudding man or a pie man. The point is that
he is a contemplative man who practices the type of mindfulness that
would lead one to make such an observation. This becomes clear to
when you pay attention to the lyrics of his songs, quite a few of
which happen to include food descriptions or metaphors involving
food.
Perhaps the quote above would not have
immediately led me to think of Fishtown's dark balladeer if he
weren't on my mind today as I prepared to write this review. As I
mentioned in my piece on Thomas Nola's Pacific Palisades, I
discovered that particular album after having just pre-ordered the
upcoming David E. Williams record, which is due for release on June
21st. Since I said I would likely review it, I've been given a
preview copy of all the completed songs in digital format. The title
is Banana Peel Slips on Itself and
it will be issued on CD by Old Europa Cafe, an Italian label
specializing in various types of experimental music. You can
currently listen to three of the tracks at his Bandcamp site, where
you can also pre-order the CD or the digital version.
Cover for Banana Peel Slips on Itself |
Although
David E. Williams has certainly dabbled in the experimental, I would
not classify most of music in that way, but it is always
undoubtedly...different. He is a troubadour of tragedy, but in a
funny way. This is especially true of the small tragedies, life's
little nuisances that plague our every day existence like foot fungus
or sunburn. He takes a subject that most might find absurd to even
think about at all and presents it with a sinister twist. Nearly all
of his songs include a blend of sorrow and a kind of humor that,
while morbid, is more commiserating than cruel.
His
musical style is somehow both a little too conventional and
incredibly strange to the degree where some listeners might be put
off. In recent years, he has recorded his songs from his home and
performs most of the parts on his keyboard with an occasional guest
musician contributing to a track. These are not merely “keyboard
songs” though, but complex creations with a variety of different
effects and layers of sound. The most notable aspect of his music is
typically his vocals, which can range from softly lilting to
violently growling with an ever-present dramatic gravitas utilized to
demonstrate the character of the narrator.
This
new album, Banana Peel Slips on Itself,
fits all the descriptions I've written above. I think it to be
top-form David E. Williams, on par with some of my favorite work by
him. Probably my favorite song is called “Margaret Sanger Lives in
Heaven” about the founder of Planned Parenthood, in which she goes
to hell but then through prayerful intervention by persons
unidentified she is able to be redeemed by fighting her way into
limbo where “the souls of every boy and girl whose ever been
aborted” now reside and she takes them with her into heaven. It's
an intense song and lyrics are amazing. I would quote them entirely
here but it doesn't seem appropriate in an album review. I'll just
give you the first stanza:
Margaret Sanger died while dreaming things we take for granted:her bold abortuaries in every corner of the planet.Murder factories for modest means and even smallerfor children of three inches with no need for need for growing taller.
For as
unpleasant as this is, it is a song about cosmic redemption; about
looking straight into the darkness of ourselves and the world we live
in and believing that there must some path back to God, “however
you define him” to paraphrase the people at Alcoholic Anonymous.
Undoubtedly, people who believe in Heaven and Hell will question the
theological soundness of the scenario presented but that is kind of
missing the point.
From
strictly a musical perspective I think the song “Chiropractor
Arrives by Helicopter” offers the most listening pleasure. It's on
the longer side of all the songs, a little over five minutes, and
unfolds a slow meditative audio experience with synthesized rhythms
and little synthetic bird-like chirps. The lyrics are simple and
short. At first I didn't understand them until I searched the
internet for “chiropractor helicopter crash” and found a news
story about a chiropractor in Florida who died when a helicopter he
was riding in crashed into a mobile home, so I assume this must be
the basis of the song. It was “ripped from the headlines” as they
say.
(UPDATE: I've learned that "Chiropractor Arrives by Helicopter" is not inspired by that news story I've cited. It's just an odd coincide.)
(UPDATE: I've learned that "Chiropractor Arrives by Helicopter" is not inspired by that news story I've cited. It's just an odd coincide.)
Actually,
the ambitious listener may be inclined to consult the internet to
understand lyrics from other songs on the album. One such example is
“Marquis de Sade was a Sadist”, which name-drops twelve different
seemingly unconnected historical figures. I don't think there is
actually a connection between all of them, but even understanding the
way they are described might require some research for the
uninformed. For instance:
And Georges Batailleboiled eggs with his eyeHe enjoyed them moston thanatoast.
I'm
not sure I get this.
You
might remember me mentioning foot fungus earlier. Well, that gets
brought up in the first song on the album called “Song About Being
a Foot”. This is a perfect example of the contemplative mindfulness
I mentioned that brings about a different way of looking at things.
Here's how the foot introduces itself:
I am a foot.Meet me at the end of your leg.Meet me where your soul meets the floorstompin' on a hard-boiled egg.
And
what about food references? Well the best example on Banana
Peels is called “The Clambake
at the End of the World.” This song is apparently about
environmental catastrophe and is sung with the exactly the opposite
of a gusto, a helpless malaise about how there is simply nothing to
be done to avert the pending disaster.
All of
the songs that I've mentioned so far are pretty catchy to me, but
there are a few that just don't do it for me musically. Even among
these, there are amusing things to be found. “Sun Cracks Through
Black Cotton” clocks in at just one minute and fourteen seconds
long. It's just really odd, but it has a food metaphor. There is a
particularly discordant cover of the old song “One Meatball” with
guest vocals by Jerome Deppe, a frequently collaborator with David E.
Williams. Go listen to a more traditional version and then listen to
this one. Personally, I like the older version better, but it's
another food song so...
Not
every song needs to be beautiful to be interesting, and “I Dreamed
I Caught a Cold” is a good example. The lyrics consist of just
three couplets. First they are sung through one time in order, but
then the couplets begin to overlap each other. While listening I
couldn't help but feel that this felt exactly like dreams I have had
where I seem to be trapped in some kind of loop that I keep living
over and over. This is more like song-designing than song-writing. It
may not appeal to most people but it is not without merit. Another
song's design I liked was “Pets Will Eat Their Owners” which is
seemingly over when the music suddenly explodes in an exuberant
melodic breakdown that lasts another minute.
I'm
not going to go into all fourteen songs on the album, but I think
I've mentioned all my favorites and my least favorites, which are
just okay. The songs falling in between my arbitrary standards of
mentionability are good and I like them. I do want to point out one
more favorite called “Lou Gehrig” with lyrics that were excerpted
and re-arranged from the great baseball player's farewell speech.
There is something special about the song because it picks out these
quirky little moments from the speech and then ends with some of the
most life-affirming words ever heard from a dying man in American
history. Both the piano playing and the vocals are incredibly
uplifting.
That's
all fine and good, but my quibble is, why not a song about someone
from the Philadelphia Phillies? All we ever hear about is the damn
Yankees! You know, I once saw a baseball game in Philadelphia where
David E. Williams drove a golf cart for the team mascot, the Philly
Phanatic, while said mascot shot hot dogs into the crowd from a
specially designed gun for shooting hot dogs. Who does that sort of
thing? After you listen to Banana Peel Slips on Itself,
I expect you'll know what kind of person does that sort of thing. A
guy like David E. Williams.
Related:
See my 2013 interview with David E. Williams for a discussion on his
personal motivations for his songwriting among other things.
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