Hello, my friends
Yes, the “hello, my friends” are the first words of Introduction II by Silver Jews. It’s on theme. And you like themes, don’t you? When’s the last theme party you went to? What was the theme? Did you follow the theme 100% or did you just do the hat part? Did you have to explain to the uptight host how you were honoring the theme? The last theme party I went to was “Dress like actors who remind you of Steve Carrell.” I dressed as David Earl Garrison. It was pretty fun until we all realized all these actors that looked like Steve Carrell weren’t as fun or as interesting as Steve Carrell and the theme shoud’ve been either “Dress like Steve Carrell” or just go themeless. It did make Great-Uncle Ronald’s funeral a little more lighthearted. Just like he wanted.
Did you check out the New York Times Best 100 Books of the 21st Century list? I’ve read 11 (soon to be 12). This makes me feel like a slouch, not keeping up with the world of reading so my new goal is to read 12 more on the list by the end of 2025. Then I’ll slay, no cap.
Song #39
I Remember Me
by Silver Jews
Most of David Berman's albums have a full-length theme or story. Bright Flight, the followup to one of the best albums of the 90’s, Silver Jews - American Water, wryly recounts Berman's in progress move from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee with his partner (and backup singer) Cassie. Bright Flight’s more country sound reveals his desire to actually take part in the business of Country Music™️("writing sad songs and getting paid by the tear") but Berman, beset by depression and demons, always intuited that would not be his fortune.
Our fortune is another set of three and four chord songs from David Berman, lyrics packed with humor and insight, many of which I still quote after 23 years. Dudes from alt country band Lambchop back him up. And their music, country but not corporate radio country, fits an implied theme of Bright Flight: showing Nashville a better product than what they were selling. This idea really shines in the storytelling song “I Remember Me.”
“I Remember Me” is a country tearjerker with an ironic distance that you enjoy as it goes through the motions of what a sardonic poet imagines is the epitome of this type of song but with better rhymes, I mean, read this:
“Out the window in the harbor he saw a little ship
The moon was worn just slightly on the right
They slow-danced so the needle wouldn't skip
And he held her till the room was filled with light”
Ah, bliss. At least until the next verse:
One day, they were cutting flowers for something to do
On the bank of the road 'neath the cottonwoods
He turned to her to ask if she'd marry him
When a runaway truck hit him where he stood.”
Ah, loss.
Back then, Berman said he wrote “I Remember Me” imagining an accident happened before he could marry Cassie. A fanciful story, gothicked up with sweet, specific details about the courtship and romance of two obviously so fated to each other. It lures you in. The last part of the song Berman sings of the man, out of a long coma, winsomely alone.
“He bought a little land with the money from the settlement
And he even bought the truck that had hit him that day
He touched the part where the metal was bent.
And if you were there you would hear him say.”
From a wise and wizened Berman it always felt like a tribute to an older song that would tell this tale. The chorus with its awkward "I remember me” and “doo doo doos” made the song almost like a postmodern regarding of a type of country song. The wrecked truck in the singer's possession as a memento of the point of time where all was changed, a touching image.
Now having the solemn fact of his suicide after his amazing farewell of the Purple Mountains album, that truck interrupting his life and happiness now appears a symbol of the demons of his life, depression and addiction, barreling down on a curvy road to sabotage the happiness and comfort Cassie brought him. Perspectives on art change with age, both the age of the work and the person regarding it. I remember me loving this and now me loves it more.
And then it ends
Come out to Legally Brewed Wednesday, October 2 for Wampus Weathers Wednesdays. The guests are fun and I’ve got a game for them to play that will be kind of fun, kind of insane. Also, it’s FREE and over by 8:30. Ideal scenario.
Thursday night I’m doing some time at The Grand Royale in The Plaza District. I think this is the place that had the best old-fashioned I have ever had a year or so ago. 5 bucks.
This issue’s Song I’m Mad I Forgot To Put On The List is “Love” by Randall Stephens, a lo-fi gospel jam from 1975 that makes my scalp tingle like it’s ASMR . Here’s the playlist of the Songs I’m Mad I Forgot To Put On The List (so I put them on this list instead.)
Which books on the list have you read and which was your favorite?