Purple Mountains
I've dreaded to write this post, but it must be done:
The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind
Purple Mountains, Nights that Won't Happen.
David Berman, leader of Silver Jews, announced his kind-of comeback earlier this year, when Drag City—his record label—released a single from his new band/moniker, Purple Mountains.
David was always explorative with art: he published some wondrous poetry and drawings, made some great albums as Silver Jews, blogged, and clearly affected and inspired many people all over the globe.
He released Darkness and Cold, an absolutely radiant, lyrically sad and melodically quite uplifting-and-sad song:
People reacted differently to this; I was also unable to take in how honestly made it is. David sings about the love of his life going out to date someone who she's just met; Fact is, he wanted to write about it before experiencing it for real:
I knew that I was gonna have to deal with that some day, with her being with someone else, and I found that idea excruciating. And so I wrote about it, to experience it first, through this song.
The fact that David didn't bitch back says a lot about him.
David did not take long to record Purple Mountains: the lyrics were finished and the music was written when he went into the studio with the band Woods. According to the band, almost all of the recorded vocals are first takes as subsequent ones rarely improved the first ones.
And the lyrics.
This fact is inescapable: they're astounding. The songs on this album are often simultaneously outrageously funny and mind-warpingly saddening.
David cared so much about music and lyrics, and the fact that he turned into a better guitarist and songwriter is clearly seen by all in his last album.
The following are the lyrics for That's Just the Way that I Feel, which is the first song on the album:
Well, I don't like talkin' to myself
But someone's gotta say it, hell
I mean, things have not been going well
This time I think I finally fucked myself
You see, the life I live is sickening
I spent a decade playing chicken with oblivion
Day to day, I'm neck and neck with giving in
I'm the same old wreck I've always been[Chorus]
And when I see her in the park
It barely merits a remark
How we stand the standard distance
Distant strangers stand apart[Verse 2]
Course I've been humbled by the void
Much of my faith has been destroyed
I've been forced to watch my foes enjoy
Ceaseless feasts of schadenfreude
And as the pace of life keeps quickening
Beneath the bitching and the bickering
When I try to drown my thoughts in gin
I find my worst ideas know how to swim[Chorus]
Well, a setback can be a setup
For a comeback if you don't let up
But this kind of hurtin' won't heal
And the end of all wanting
Is all I've been wanting
And that's just the way that I feel[Verse 3]
I met failure in Australia
I fell ill in Illinois
I nearly lost my genitalia
To an anthill in Des Moines
I was so far gone in Fargo
South Dakota got annoyed
That's the shit I'm talkin' 'bout
When I talk to you about
Ceaseless feasts of schadenfreude[Chorus]
And a setback can be a setup
For a comeback if you don't let up
But this kind of hurtin' won't heal
And the end of all wanting
Is all I've been wanting
The end of all wanting
Is all I've been wanting
The end of all wanting
Is all I've been wanting
And that's just the way that I feel
I include the entire lyric because the song is funny, heartbreaking, intelligently written, and, paired with the music, makes for one of the best songs of 2019.
I have found no other album made in 2019 to even come near this one. It's hard to think of others which match it, ever, when we're in the same playing field.
Some people claim the album to be a sort of suicide note. It's not, according to David himself:
“Mine is not a cry for help, but an offer to provide a kind of it,” he tells me via email. “But I understand that listening to them for the first time they might read as suicide notes. Yet search the song and you’ll find no body on the premises. They really are inhabitable. You can move in right away.”
I love Christian Patterson's photographs throughout the album, as well as Cassie Berman's.
Bob Nastanovic, David's bandmate in Silver Jews, recorded the following podcast episode where he spoke about working with David:
This podcast episode where Vish Khanna speaks with David about the coming Purple Mountains album—among a slew of other subjects—is glorious because of David:
David knew what he did with his lyrics, music, song order, PR, and communications; he read a whole lot about capitalistic propaganda and what it does to the human psyche—no doubt fuelled by his fight against his father—not to mention Thomas Bernhard and Peter Sloterdijk.
He took part in an ask-me-anything (AMA) session on Reddit.
From that AMA:
Q: What’s your biggest lyrical regret, and what will your gravestone say? Thank you, I’ve missed your music all these years!
A: So many. It hit me just recently that in the first 4 lines i rhyme myself with myself! That was not something i intended to do!
I FUCKED up on the opening lyric of the opening song though i had pored over it for months- I had to laugh.
I was "crestfallen" until i thought of the mirroring themes mentioned elsewhere, and was able to rationalize it as a great mistake.
HEADSTONE:
"HE WAS CRESTFALLEN UNTIL HE WAS ABLE TO RATIONALIZE IT AS A GREAT MISTAKE"
There's a lovely site named DCB Uncollected where somebody who's, in lovely and altruistic fashion, collected a lot of stuff that David did. Check it out for some choice links to, for example, interviews, reading, and correspondence.
[A twitter post](Just got forwarded this email a friend of a friend received from DB after making a booking request in 2014...):
Just got forwarded this email a friend of a friend received from DB after making a booking request in 2014...
A drawing David Berman sent me entitled “At The End of the World” after I interviewed him for my fanzine in 1994
Check out the video in this tweet:
What follows is one of the most beautiful letters I've seen. I had permission from the poster before their twitter account was suspended to publish the letter on my blog, which I did. It's David Berman's letter on sobriety.
If you want to dissect the songs on this album more, here are David Berman's own words via the interview with Vish Khanna that I linked to earlier in this post.
There's no way I can end this post well. Hence, here's a karaoke version of Maybe I'm The Only One For Me that I've made. Sing along! The lyrics are found here. First, a Q&A quote from Vish Khanna/David where the latter reveals that this is a song written from an incel's view:
This has a classic country music motif, but it feels very honest too. Is this how you're really feeling?
Well, yeah, in a way it is. I don't have any desire to be in a relationship with anyone else, and I do feel like I'm on the other side of my career of being a Lothario. I have a very low sex drive and I'm not interested in a relationship. But I was also speaking to the reality of the fate of young involuntary celibates. This is definitely from an incel's perspective, and I also realize it's also the ultimate neo-liberal love song, as we sit in a place of peak individualism. It's not the kind of message I'm proud to spread. I don't intend it to be a love song to the self — it's more of an 'I'm stuck with myself' song. If no one wants to fuck you, it's your fault.
David Berman Discusses Every Song on Purple Mountains' Self-Titled New Album
