The Completionist's Nightmare
Discovering an artist 25 years in - Jeffrey Lewis & Robert Zimmerman
This past week I was swept away by two albums and I’ve been struggling about how to talk about them. One album, The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis, dropped last Friday, twenty four years after his debut album and the other album, Nashville Skyline, is, I believe, the ninth of forty albums by a man by whom my previous favorite album was some songs from Bob Dylan Greatest Hits Vol. 1. No slouch, Jeffrey Lewis has essentially put out an album a year from 2001 to 2019 with his latest apparently being coming after a six year break. I say apparently because I don’t know Jeffrey Lewis and I don’t know where to begin.
So I haven’t. I just keep playing The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis over and over and saying to myself that it’s ok. If this is the only Jeffrey Lewis album I ever hear, that’s totally ok. The polar ice caps are melting that is unrelated. By not enrolling in an independent study at Dickhead University in Jeffrey Lewis studies, I’m actually using less energy so in a sense I’m saving the polar ice caps even though the energy saved is just getting dumped back into playing the one album I love. Yeah. I love this one album and I don’t have any idea how it stacks amongst his work.
I’ll admit I jumped to the first song that the Apple Music algorithm deemed “star-worthy” and it was “Relaxation” a freight train of folk punk that you could imagine being screamed into a rented microphone to 17 kids in a church basement. The first thing I noticed was his voice this weird amalgamation of John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, 1950s musical satirist (and still alive!) Tom Lehrer, and weirdly Tom Green. There’s a flat, detachment employed by his voice that really drives all of his songs.
His voice leads the way but never feels like there’s a destination in mind and the music is just trailing along. His song “Tylenol PM” about his one-sided love affair with Tylenol PM is as heartbreaking as any love song. “Movie Date” about how women be falling asleep during movies? Are you reading my diary, Jeffrey Lewis?
Also, look at this cover:
That’s a Bob Dylan cover! That’s the other guy I was talking about! I’m bad about doing links and stuff but that’s cause I use Apple Music and everybody else uses Spotify but I bet you could find 40 mins to give this a spin. If you like the Magnetic Fields or the Moldy Peaches or good music, I really am quite taken with this album. Will I face my fears of being ok with not devoting my life to Jeffrey Lewis consumption? No. I will never be ok with not devoting my life to curing JLC.
I’ve been putting letting the algorithm take control a little bit but in my way. If you just let the algorithm take control, you only get fed Tate McRae and Morgan Wallen and friend, that sucks. Nothing personal against either of them but I don’t like them and it is personal actually. Drop the location, MDub.
Driving home from shows lately, I take a different Creedence Clearwater Revival deep cut I’m not familiar with and start a station. What happens is I eventually hear “Have You Ever Heard The Rain” and “Down on the Corner” which is ok because secretly that’s always the goal. Those are good songs and I’m a good boy. Really what’s going on is that I said “REM is the best American band” and then Hank said that CCR erasure and I felt real bad because it was CCR erasure so if you were wondering why I’m not discovering more deep gems from the Jeffrey Lewis catalog, actually I’m trying to settle a made up argument out of spite. CCR were real good. REM also good. It’s hard.
Anyway folks after Willy and Po Boys were playing, “Lay Lady Lay” by Bob Dylan came on.
“What the hell is this?” I asked myself, astounded that “Lay Lady Lay” wasn’t an Eric Clapton song. That’s how little Bob Dylan I know. I didn’t even know that he ever could sound like this. I stopped the song and put the album on and miraculously it ended as I pulled onto my street (then I switched to Call Me Daddy). What a lovely album of lovely songs. Kicks off with the Johnny Cash duet “The Girl from the North Country” and then absolutely burns down the state of Tennessee with “The Nashville Skyline Rag”
I knew that Bob Dylan moved in phases and personas and was ever-evolving but shit. I guess I didn’t believe it. Well, it’s nice to be less stupid but it stings all the same. Is it ok that the only Bob Dylan albums I know are Nashville Skyline and Greatest Hits Vol 1? Is it ok that I did the same joke again? I don’t know. Sorry this came out on Wednesday.