David Berman (1967–2019)
When it comes to art, some things mystify me: How the likes of John, Paul, George and Ringo managed not only to exist at the same time, but find each other. How Jimi Hendrix’s brain told his fingers to play those sounds. How George Carlin, right up until his death at 71, could speak so fast and precise, never stumbling over a single word. And, in the case of David Berman, how one person could conjure up so many perfect words.
The first time I tried to get into Silver Jews, in 1998 or 99, it didn’t stick. I’d been a Pavement fan for a few years, probably read about the connection in an interview, and picked up a Silver Jews CD, assuming I would love it.
I didn’t love it. I was 18 or 19 years old and almost certainly expected it to “sound more like Pavement.” I was still a kid. Kids not only say the darndest things, they don’t like things for the darndest reasons.
But, in hindsight, it was more than that. I wasn’t ready for it. Sonically and lyrically, it felt heavy, like there was a lot going on. I had only recently graduated into indie rock from pop punk. I didn’t want a lot going on.
Fortunately for me, Silver Jews got a second chance to make a first impression, when the time was right.
I was maybe 25 and going on a solo road trip. A friend burned me a couple mixed CDs for the drive and one of them had “Tennessee” on it (from 2001’s Bright Flight). I was hooked and couldn’t believe this was the band I wasn’t immediately attracted to just six years prior.
But, in hindsight, it makes perfect sense.
In those six years, I’d moved out of my mom’s house, slept on a friend’s couch for a while, joined a couple of bands, started drinking — a lot, gotten a corporate career-type job where I was already a supervisor because the previous supervisor had a stroke. One of my best childhood friends had died.
I’d crammed a bunch of living into those six years. Most of us do. Whether we leave our hometowns for college, join the military, accidentally fall into a career, those are often our first truly independent years, where we flounder about and fuck up, trying to figure ourselves out and make sense of the new world(s) around us.
And Silver Jews songs are nothing if not full of life.
Not just big life — relationships, death, etc. … though there’s plenty of that — but the smallest life. The daily minutiae. The rainbows in the garden hose. The icicles. The wallpaper.
David Berman’s words read like journal entries from an explorer who’s studied every nook and cranny of our fascinating, beautiful, heartbreaking world, someone who bothered to pause and take it all in, while the rest of us had our noses in our phones to see if they’d announced a release date for the next phone.
The same friend who’d put “Tennessee” on a mixed CD loaned me Actual Air, Berman’s book of poems. I couldn’t believe a man with four (at the time) albums of flawless lyrics under his belt had enough imagination and wit left over to also put out a 94-page book of poetry, but it was true. And, just like Silver Jews’ lyrics, it was perfect. Zero fat, zero filler, instantly affecting.
I’ll prove it.
When something passes in the dark,
I try to tell its side of the story.
“I am passing someone in the dark,” it thinks …
(from “World: Series”)
I literally just picked up the book, fanned the pages, stopped randomly and pointed to some words without looking.
I bet it works every time.
We’d sit in the rooms without ceilings, drinking white hill whiskey under the recombinant stars, and Bobby, who loved to go on about things, would reminisce about his dead wife who’d contracted a disease from sleeping too close to the boxfan.
(from “Nervous Ashers”)
Berman’s words catapult you into the scene. You see what he sees or what his characters see, and he blurs the lines between Him and His Characters, making every passage more relatable and believable. He’s not telling a story, he’s relaying the events as they’re happening, inviting you to observe.
I’m drunk on a couch in Nashville
in a duplex near the reservoir
and every single thought is like a punch in the face,
I’m like a rabbit freezing on a star.
(from “Horseleg Swastikas,” Bright Flight)
A freight train rattles the chandelier
and if we’re like plug-in reindeer
whose cords can’t stretch far enough to fly,
we’re gonna take a ride in the dirt
we’re gonna die ’til it doesn’t hurt
then they can bury us side by side.
(from “Room Games and Diamond Rain,” Bright Flight)
Much of Berman’s charm is that, even within the confines of the “sad” songs, there’s a smirk or two (or three, four … ). There’s no time to dwell on the sadness — the narrator’s, characters’ or your own. Every song is a ride, tone turning on a dime, making each line a gift you can’t wait to open.
Berman’s dry, speak-sing voice might make you think every song is a sad song, but I never put a Silver Jews’ record on to be the soundtrack for a bad day, I put it on to transport me from the bad day. His words force you to pause and pay attention, thereby providing a distraction from real life the same way a movie might. In many ways, the songs feel like mini movies, or excerpts from movies, fading in and out, leaving the resolutions up to your imagination.
Silver Jews released two more records before calling it a day, 2005’s Tanglewood Numbers and 2008’s Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, effectively carrying me almost into my 30s. I don’t use the word “carrying” lightly here. Sure, I was into a bunch of bands in my 20s, but Silver Jews, with that voice and those words, served as a sort of weird, warm balance, both musically and mentally. The songs felt like a friend jabbing you in the side with an elbow to show you something or tell you a joke they heard. They didn’t lie and say everything was gonna be okay (“Let’s not kid ourselves, it gets really, really bad”) and, honestly, that honesty was oddly reassuring. It felt like Berman believed you could handle the truth and, when you could, it felt like you could handle anything.
In the 2000s, it felt strange to have a favorite poet, let alone a favorite living poet. No one was really asking “Who’s your favorite poet?” on Myspace. Even the word “poetry” sounds like something you’d see in a museum next to a powdered wig or telegraph, or Myspace. But David Berman was a poet. He taught poetry simply by writing some of the absolute best of it and, with that poetry, taught us that virtually nothing is mundane. The most simple, unassuming thing can tell a story — a piece of furniture, a pair of shoes. Everything has a place and purpose if you let it, if you take a break and think about it.
He was our complicated, reclusive, disheveled professor of paying attention, of excavating the inconspicuous, and I’m grateful we managed not only to exist at the same time for a time, but that his words and wisdom found me. Twice.
