Dan Bern
Dan Bern
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NATN Recommended
Dan Bern
Dan Bern
Chameleon, 1993
RiYL: Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground |
Bern pretty clearly listened to Dylan once or twice before making this album, and by "once or twice", I mean Bern popped from the womb with The Times They Are A-Changin' playing in the maternity ward. Most of ol' R. Zimmerman's classic techniques are here: the jarring harmonica, the acoustic chords strummed loudly after a coughed-out phrase, the liberal use of the word "babe". But Dan Bern is a '90s album, through and through.
Forgive the pocket psychoanalysis here, but if Dylan's influences were Vietnam, Woody Guthrie and the beat poets, maybe you can claim that he wanted to be the guitar-poet that conscienced the country out of war. Bern grew up watching movies and listening to the Clash, and (though this makes 1993 seem like a really long time ago) was part of a generation that didn't care whether or not it had a spokesman. Dan Bern at its best just isn't as heavy as Dylan music, or at least it masks its serious subjects with humor. It invokes screen icons and psychotherapy, Cinnabon and cosmetic surgery, and perhaps its true art is that it does so without seeming to reach for its pop culture references in a last-ditch effort to stay relevant.
Dan Bern begins with "Jerusalem;" musically, the album's most obvious Dylan tribute. "Jerusalem" also features arguably the best lyrics on the album -- maybe some of the best from the entire pop-music canon -- and they're Bern's and Bern's alone. Sample this:
And if you must put me in a box Make sure it's a big box With lots of windows And a door to walk through And a nice high chimney So we can burn burn burn Everything that we don't like And watch the ashes Fly up to Heaven Maybe all the way to India I'd like that
Bern goes on to talk about Einstein, olives and Dr. Nusbaum ("he's my therapist, he said get it out in the open"), and, well, I want to quote the whole thing so just go read the lyrics yourself. "Jerusalem" is Dan Bern taking Dylan music places it hasn't been since Dylan, and in the process taking himself out of Bob's great big shadow. He's funny, he's muscular, he's confused about which of India and Heaven is farther away (or is he?), he's teetering on the edge.
The album quickly changes its tone. The solo-guy-with-guitar thing is abandoned on the next track, "Go To Sleep", a rocker with drums and even a sound effect. It's a song about disaffection with the cold, commercial world that's fun, but really not that memorable aside from a line comparing people and tomatoes (both genetically engineered to fit into boxes). "Wasteland" keeps the drummer and the disaffection, but slows the pace down. It starts out similarly unmemorable, but Bern blows that up, taking his wobbly voice to its highest peak yet on the refrain "every single block looks like every single block." It's a surprisingly moving moment, not surprising because it's powerful, but because Bern's vocal chords supply the momentum.
On "Marilyn," Bern takes us deep into the pop-culture references, and he does it well. The protagonists are Marilyn Monroe and Henry Miller (the semi-pornographic author), and Bern is fantasizing about how much happier Marilyn would have been had she married Miller instead of Joe Dimaggio et al. The song's vivid imagery (blue hair, opium, eating dinner off Marilyn's belly, even the f-word(!)) and sing-along silly chorus make it a fun listen, but there's also no masking the fact that Bern thinks Marilyn's story is a real tragedy. As trite and overplayed as that sounds, Bern makes the listener feel it too.
Rest easy, there isn't any kind of sad message on "King Of The World," the next track. Bern's back solo, rocking out this time, giddily describing what happened when -- you guessed it -- he was elected king of the world. Bern sings, "I want peace and quiet, I want nudity, I want sex and wine and love / They said 'So let it be written, Your highness, So let it be done,'" and if you can disagree with that platform, you're a lost cause. The lyrics are comically fantastic, but there's also a driving little punk-rock song going on here, replete with a chugging acoustic guitar and vocals that reach an entertainingly strained peak.
"Too Late To Die Young" dives back into pop-culture land. There are a lot of songs and stories out there about getting old, but Bern manages to find a new way to stress out about the lines growing on his face, lamenting an opportunity gone with his departed youth: the chance to die young. Bern compares fat Vegas Elvis to mythologized and permanently beautiful James Dean, and you see that he's got something of a point. The song's strong suit is its chorus and a clever line about being on his third city and his fourth car and his fifth apartment, sung with a harsh poignancy that would have done Elvis Costello proud.
"Rome" is the album's lowpoint, a dirge where all melody goes to die, but at least it's long. Bern picks up the pace again on "I'm Not The Guy," his take on forgive-me-take-me-back rock, and again he shows off his cleverly unique writing: "last night in the kitchen / I cancelled my subscription" to the figurative magazine that shows what a screw-off he's been. "Never Fall In Love" covers the same territory from another perspective, that of a jilted lover promising to go to extreme measures to protect himself from Cupid's arrow. It sounds a lot like "I'm Not The Guy," and both are enjoyable filler between the album's classics.
"Estelle" is one of those classics, Bern at his rambling best. Set to a foot-tapping organ, guitar and drums, it's a love story about Bern the painter and a drunk Mormon girl. In true folk fashion, it cycles through a whole cast of bit characters to tell the story of a girl memorable because she was too paintable to be painted. It's good storytelling, all obsession and hope and harmonica.
Dan Bern closes with a "Queen", a piano ballad -- Tom Waits if Tom Waits sang with a high-pitched, wheedling voice. It's a fitting end to the album, slow and a little depressing to ease you into the realization that whatever you listen to next probably won't be as good as what just finished.
JEFF GRAY | Jeff Gray used to be an important mover and shaker in Chicago, but gave all that up to live on a beach in rural Hawaii. You'll notice him if you're there, he's the one who's very tall and a little bit sunburned. His musical tastes tend towards the mainstream -- Phish, Radiohead, The Strokes -- but he'll argue to the death that those bands are mainstream because they're 100% awesome. Jeff's always on the lookout for the next great pop song, tidbits about Michigan football, and 80's action movies on cable.