evening at bernie's--"It's a Budweiser, Budgetel, Bukowski kind of night"
"been speaking later and later in the day
Most days I don't talk 'till maybe 8 o'clock at night
It keeps me whole, keeps me holy
Keeps me way up in the mountains even when I"m on the road"
--new american language
nena and i took our notebooks for a night out to a nearby city to see songwriter dan bern. nena nursed her beer the first set, while i wished they sold jack daniels and stared off a while. we sketched the crowd and made up stories while waiting for the show.
he's bigger than you think he might be, lots of muscles and sweat, and when he sings his face takes on the clearness of one who is doing exactly what he should be, and loving it. he played for hours, busting four strings, alternating coffee and beer, digging into pockets of politics, dreamscapes, strange dips into cultural references, both classic and those still in their 15th minute of fame.
"Shakespeare's got no use for thick black glasses
Who sit and dissect tragedies in college English classes
Shakespeare's sick of words, Shakespeare's sick of letters
Shakespeare watches videos, the dirtier the better"
his eyes are sharp, and there's no painful sincerity, no whiny-ass complaining, no pithy hallmark-card truths. some of his songs were little bits, sideway glances into a slice of time. others were introspective without boring us. his views on matters of the heart are not sentimental.
"For three years I did nothing except drive
I guess I needed to meditate
I guess I could have gone into a monastery
But they don't let you listen to talk radio
I read your palm, I said you will find love
But it might not be that important"
you hear someone who's a little weary, but not bitter yet.
"everything is changing faster than I can describe
All I really know to do is grab the wheel and drive
I look for love, and some adventure
And I try not to let my own breathing scare me off the road"
dan's a prolific writer-- over 400 songs, covering controversial topics like abortion and silicon implants, dylanic sets of talkin' blues, miniaturist ray carver songs about ordinary people and pop icons caught in tiny landscapes. he's all over the map musically as well, switching from sparse and gentle wrap-around backgrounds to string-busting pounds.
"And every place I go is one less place I could call home
And every girl I kiss, well I just cross her off my list
I don't go far, I just go crazy
I buried all of my old clothes out in some field in West Des Moines
sometimes I think the thing to do
Would be to get a nice place way out in Missouri
Put down as many months' rent as you can part with
Tell everybody else you went to France"
somedays I couldn't agree more.
you get a sense of him, but there's room in there for you to find a little of yourself too. that's what makes songs work: finding some piece of truth that sticks, no matter how small. that's why we need singers: someone who can translate our truths back for us, so we can recognize them out in the air. artists are our culture's boundary walkers, sitting between us and heaven, and letting us know what's happening when we lose our language. we get grateful.
"And there's a black tornado, black tornado
Spinning around in my body sometimes
Black tornado, black tornado
Spinning around in my body sometimes"
I can relate, nena writes in her notebook.
"Everybody's shifty
Some secret's in the air
Half of me wants to crack the code
The other half don't care
I wouldn't bat an eyelid
If right now someone said
Boy, the folks you're talking to
Have been a hundred years dead"
dan has a diverse fan base: punks, alt-country fans, folkies, intellectual politicos, arty readers of thick russian novels. What do you expect from a hillbilly intellectual kentucky jew? his music is in stuck in the non-descriptive "singer/songwriter" blackhole but he ain't your daddy's folksinger. check him out at www.danbern.com.
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thanks kindly--