Ten Best Songs of 2008 – #6
Yesterday I wrote about my biggest surprise of 2008… now I come to my biggest disappointment.
Ben Folds is one of my very favorite artists and through his career with both Ben Folds Five and as a soloist, he has almost never made a wrong step. But his latest album, Way to Normal, is his first to leave me cold.
Following his recent (and third) divorce, he decided to steer clear of the traditional breakup album and release something frivolous instead. And that’s fine. But this particular batch of songs is beneath his extraordinary talents — laden with unnecessary profanity and sophomoric humor, light on melody and heavy on monotony. I hope his next album steps up to the plate and apologizes for this one.
But I digress. I’m counting down my ten favorite songs of 2008, so let me get to the good stuff. Nestled among the B-grade material on Way to Normal are a couple of standout tracks and one in particular, ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ that really knocks my socks off.
It’s a duet of sorts with Regina Spektor that manages to examine a crumbling relationship and strike that note of whimsy Folds was going for on the rest of the album. Spektor, whose Begin to Hope I enjoyed in 2006, is a fitting foil for Folds (I apologize for the gratuitous alliteration). They have a winning rapport that makes the back-and-forth particularly effective.
Best of all is the sparse, staccato piano and string accompaniment, a delicious sound that simultaneously feels brand-new and like it must have been conjured up eons ago.
Do you ever sit and wonder,
It’s so strange
That we could be together for
So long, and never know, never care
What goes on in the other one’s head?
Things I’ve felt but I’ve never said
You said things that I never said
So I’ll say something that I should have said long ago:
(You don’t know me)
You don’t know me at all
You could have just propped me up on the table like a mannequin
Or a cardboard stand-up and paint me
Any face that you wanted me
To be seen.
We’re damned by the existential moment when
We saw the couple in the coma and
It was we were the cliché,
But we carried on anyway.
So, sure, I could just close my eyes.
Yeah, sure, trace and memorize,
But can you go back once you know
(You don’t know me)
You don’t know me at all
If I’m the person that you think I am
Clueless chump you seem to think I am
So easily led astray,
An errant dog who occasionally escapes and needs a shorter leash, then
Why the fuck would you want me back?!
Maybe it’s because
(You don’t know me at all)
So what I’m trying to say is
What I’m trying to tell you
It’s not gonna come out like I wanna say it cause I know you’ll only change it.
(Say it.)
(You don’t know me)
You don’t know me at all
Meet Me In Montauk 
I think you are being too hard on this album. I’m not sure how many times you have played it, but I have gone through it at least 5 times, and have found that it has grown on me.. There has always been a tendency for Folds to stray into sophomoric humor or the odd musical experimentation. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, On first listen, I wasn’t crazy about songs like Hiroshima, Errant Dog, Brainwascht, etc…, but the more I listen, the more I appreciate the inventiveness and the musicianship. I consider The Frown Song, You Don’t Know Me, Cologne, Free Coffee, and Kyle from Connecticut some standouts.
You Don’t Know Me is, no doubt, a standout, and I’m glad to see it featured on your top 10.
He’s been divorced three times?! How old is he? Does each marriage last a minute or did he marry for the first time at 12? STRANGE.
I haven’t heard this album (well, aside from a track or two that Dana has played for me), but I love this song. I agree that it manages to feel simultaneously retro and brand new – which is always a good thing 🙂
As for Dana’s greater appreciation for the album… sophomoric humor not so foreign to him 😉 (someone was bound to say it)
I’ve definitely played it more than five times, and I do appreciate some of the songs (including the ones you named). But compared to the five albums that preceded it, there’s just no comparison. Nothing here comes close to the best tracks on his previous solo albums or any of the Ben Folds Five CDs.