Because I’ve left just one Ben Folds studio album uncovered, I’m adding a bonus day in order to cover all the bases.
Folds’ third solo offering, 2008’s Way to Normal, was a big step down for the man responsible for the albums I’ve covered over the past five days. While I found myself frustrated that I could pick only one song from each of the others CDs, in this case it was a struggle to pick one I like enough to feature.
That might be overstating things a bit, because Way to Normal does contain some catchy choruses and strong piano work. And Folds does some interesting things in the production, fiddling with the sound of his piano to discover new sounds. But overall, there simply are no standout tracks on this album… nothing that comes close to stacking up against his previous work.
‘The Frown Song’ is a jaunty little number that treads some of the same territory as ‘Rockin’ the Suburbs’ — pointing out the absurdity of the ‘privileged’ class. I really like the lyrics, dripping with contempt as they describe a self-absorbed asshole: “Present the waitress with your allergy card and tell her all your problems and leave no tip at all.”
After 13 years of universally excellent music, it was a bit disconcerting to be disappointed by a Ben Folds album… sort of like the first time Rob Reiner made a mediocre movie after a streak in the 80s and early 90s that is still pretty much unmatched. But I’m confident this was an exception and not the new rule.
Like a weary war-torn refugee
Crossing the border with your starving child
It’s a struggle just to get to shiatsu
Present the waitress with your allergy card
And tell her all your problems
And leave no tip at all
Down to the shoe store with your friends
Speculate who might be fucking the guru
Rock on, rock on, with your fashionable frown
Rock on, rock on, spread the love around
Rock on, rock on, with your fashionable frown
Spread the love around
Do you remember how we managed before
We could afford real nervous breakdowns
Or before the Anthropologie store
Was erected on Indian burial grounds
So really don’t you see a little of yourself
In the bathroom attendant that you just scowled at
Or the child who’s hiding inside
As you wipe the smile off the teenage barista
All right
You’re gonna be all right, baby
You’re gonna be all right, baby
Floating back from the spa to the car
A state of bliss, and it wasn’t the steam room
Sometimes life’s not so bad
Now we know who’s been fucking the guru
Meet Me In Montauk 
I don’t know; I find this all a bit too glib. It’s sooo easy to mock the “problems” of the privileged class, but he doesn’t even pretend to present real people or images in this song. We’ve debated about the brilliance of his narrative skills in the past two threads, and here he doesn’t even bother to get to caricature status. i find his contempt hypocritical and rather disgusting. Certainly not the Ben Folds that holds any appeal for me.
If you reflect on “Brick,” a song you chose not to feature this week for some reason (no youtube video?), he presents a scenario of a young unmarried couple who make a painful decision to have an abortion. Meanwhile, her parents are off in Charlotte for the weekend. I can easily see him revisiting that story with the tone he takes in this one and finding all sorts of ways to condemn the parents and teens in that scenario.
Instead, he feels compassion for them (himself? Maybe he’s become increasingly self-loathing over the years?) and the result is far superior.
Oh, and here’s a video of a live performance so that those who are interested can hear one of the songs I consider Ben Folds’ greatest…
Sorry; it’s not a live performance, but it is a great one 🙂
Another one of my favorites (“Philosophy”), and this video has the added bonus of a very funny British host in the first few moments. Enjoy 🙂
I don’t know, I think there’s a place for glib and dismissive mockery of absurd people. Randy Newman has made a great living on this sort of thing (and, like Folds, has also written a ton of meaningful songs).
I think ‘Brick’ is a great song but it’s not among my very favorites. It’s also the one Ben Folds song that pretty much everybody has heard. Even you, album hater! 🙂
And “Jackson Cannery”
Just feel I must defend my “iTunes mentality” and let the music explain why these are the Ben Folds songs I gravitate to – not because they’re “singles,” as I haven’t downloaded a single one from iTunes, but because they’re FRAKKIN BRILLIANT!
I’m not sure pretty much everyone has heard it. How? I don’t think Ben Folds has yet has an “umbrella… ella, ella” moment with any of his songs. Who goes around humming Ben Folds after listening to the radio? I would beg to differ there. Why it’s not a song you hold in high esteem (other than the belief that the masses have somehow embraced it already, I also don’t understand).
And certainly you can write a contemptuous treatment of any class – low, middle, or upper – if you do it with some detail. Randy Newman’s “My LIfe is Good” is one of the funniest and most biting songs I’ve ever heard, mostly because he is so relentlessly specific with his criticism, and the fact that he mocks himself in the process makes it work all the more…
My wife and I
Took a little ride into
Beverly Hills
Went to the private school
Our oldest child attends
Many famous people send their children there
This teacher says to us
“We have a problem here
This child just will not do
A thing I tell him to.
And he’s such a big old thing.
He hurts the other children.
All the games they play, he plays so rough…”
Hold it teacher
Wait a minute
Maybe my ears
Are clogged or somethin’
Maybe I’m not understanding
The English language
Dear, you don’t seem to realize
My life is good
My life is good
My life is good, you old bag
My life, my life
Now that is wonderful. This “Frown Song” mocking people who share their list of allergies while not giving a tip to the waitress is just absurd. Who is that person? Nobody I recognize. But I sure recognize the people in Newman’s songs.
While it wasn’t an ‘Umbrella’-sized hit, it is certainly the only hit the band ever had. And I don’t know why you assume I don’t hold the song “in high esteem” because I said it isn’t one of my very favorites! It’s a great song. Is it as good as ‘Selfless, Cold and Composed?’ — not in my opinion.
As for ‘The Frown Song,’ I certainly don’t put it on a level with Newman’s best satire. As I said up above, this is Folds’ weakest album. But I do like this song and I find it funny. And I bet if you lived in L.A. or traveled in different circles you would recognize the person in this song.
Regarding your iTunes mentality, I think you love those songs because they’re the first two on the album! They’re probably the ones you’ve heard the most often on the way from the house to the store.
If ‘Where’s Summer B?,’ ‘Video,’ ‘The Last Polka’ and ‘Sports and Wine’ were the first four songs of that album, you’d probably love those just as much.
But I don’t listen to albums 🙂 I have Ben Folds’ songs in a collection on my iPod and I will skip around until those come up – not because they’re the first two (I couldn’t, and can’t, even tell you which albums those four songs are on) but because they’re the ones I love the most.
But you first heard them before you got an iPod, back when you had only the album.
That reminds me of Sophia, who always wants to hear ‘Umbrella’ and ‘Disturbia’ and won’t even give three seconds to any other song on that album. Have you, or she, given the other songs enough of a chance to know if maybe you’d love them too?
Well, we always do get right back to the same conversation, don’t we? Perhaps Sophia, lke her aunt, recognizes that there are only so many hours in the day and that she may as well enjoy and relish those things (books, songs, films) that give her joy. Sure, others will inevitably slip in over time, but if they push out the ones she’s already devoted herself to, then she must sacrifice her first loves for these new discoveries. It’s a difficult choice to make. Yes, maybe she would love them too, but at what cost? Hmmmmmmmm……..
Yes, it is the same conversation and I guess it’s just a matter of your individual taste. Do you find enough enjoyment in the discovery of new loves to make up for the diminished time you’ll have to spend with old ones?
I’m definitely a “seek out the new” kind of person. And one added benefit I find is that having a lot of loves allows me to rediscover old ones all over again. For example, this week I’ve been playing a lot of David Byrne in my car. Some of these albums I haven’t listened to in months or years, and it’s a joy to experience them again.
I think I would get bored of a song or album if I listened to it constantly.
Dana must be feeling much more secure than Alex is about now 😉
Back to the portrait Folds paints in this song… I would buy this allergy obsessed individual leaving a big tip to make him feel all the more important and special. I would also buy him feeling as though the waitress scorned his list and therefore stiffing her when it came time to leave the tip. What I don’t buy is that he presents his special needs, is treated with respect and courtesy, then leaves no tip. Sure there could be such an individual in the world, but it doesn’t sound like a real person, whereas the other two derivations seem completely likely.
I think you’re taking it too literally, and too seriously. It’s an amusing caricature… I don’t think it’s intended to conjure up a flesh and blood person with complex motives.
Ah, so he’s not such a narrative artist after all, I see.
Oh, he’s quite versatile… which you’d know if you could get past track three on the iPod! 🙂
Okay, hold it, hold it, hold it hold it!!!!
First of all, my lord, I can’t believe how the two of you can go on and on and on splitting hairs over such minor differences in opinion.:) How do you have so much time on your hands to write all this?:)
Second of all, just as the Montauk universe seemed to implode earlier in the week when I dared to agree to readily with Clay, forcing Clay to end the blog and Alex to come out of the shadows, now it seems to be going through an aftershock because I became Mr. A Type personality this week at trial and didn’t have time to express my usual contrarian views
Well, trial is over, and, after 12 hours of sleep, I’m back baby! Call me Mr. B type (maybe C) for the forseeable future. And so, I must now tackle 3 issues—the “micro-narrative” (and how frackin’ high falutin’ is THAT term, exactly?), whether today’s featured song hits the satirical mark or is too glib and whether Fold’s latest album is as big a dud as Clay continues to profess..
Jeez—so much too tackle—good thing I have the time to do ot:)
Okay—here goes…Issue 1 — I side with Amy on this one– Rosalinda’s Eyes is as much a narrative as Annie Waits. I think Clay’s defimination of the narrative is a bit too narrow.
Issue 2 — I think you both are misreading this song. I don’t think the character is a rich snob at all. I think it is an upper middle class person who wants to believe that he is richer than he is, and so he acts with a faux sophistication and classist disposition that he has neither “earned” or deserves. He is somehow snoody and rude without even having obtained the status to get away with it, and that is, in part, the irony. The other message in the song is basically talking about the superficiality of the lifestyle of the American upper middle class. I find the song interesting, humorous and fairly on target. So, on this one, I side with Clay.
Now, on issue 3, I continue to feel that Clay is being WAY too hard on this album. I can only assume that Clay couldn’t find a youtube clip of the single, You Don’t Know Me, as that is clearly a very good song–different than previous work, but I would argue on par with much of previous songs of Folds. I also find other songs on this album compelling, including Cologne and Kyle from Connecticut. Perhaps one step back from those three is today’s featured song, as well as Hiroshima, Dr. yang, Free Coffee and Effington . Now I admit that Errant Dog and Brainwascht are rather weak and Bitch Went Nuts is kind of a throwaway, but not really that much more so than Julianne or Song for the Dumped–both of which do little for me on Folds’ first 2 albums that you hold in such high regard.
Okay, i guess I’ll stop there, and go grill some dinner.
Now, let’s all re-assume our blog roles, so that Montaukl does not combust again!:)
Yes, I believe we entered a wormhole into an alternate universe when you agreed with me earlier this week, and Amy suddenly found herself in your role. Whether that has been corrected is yet to be determined.
I do love ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ and in fact the reason I didn’t highlight it today is because I chose it as one of my top ten songs of 2008 and featured it as a Song of the Day last month.
But from there, the drop is steep. ‘Cologne’ and ‘Kylie from Connecticut’ are effective enough, but don’t tell me you can say with a straight face that they’re anywhere close in quality to ‘Alice Childress,’ ‘Missing the War,’ ‘Fair,’ ‘Philosophy,’ ‘Jackson Cannery,’ ‘Selfless, Cold and Composed,’ ‘Brick,’ ‘The Last Polka,’ ‘Underground,’ ‘One Angry Dwarf,’ ‘Jesusland,’ ‘Gracie,’ ‘Lullaby’ … the list goes on and on. There is only one song on this album (‘You Don’t Know Me’) that is in the same universe as just about everything else Folds has ever released.
I will bet my house that if you had to discard just one Ben Folds (or Ben Folds Five) album, it would be this one. That doesn’t make it a bad album, and I’m not suggesting it is, but it does make it his worst yet.
Well, yes, I can say with a straight face that Cologne is in the league with at least some of those songs, and is certainly in the league if not better than other slongs on earlier albums that you did not mention.
But, yes, I will agree that this may be his weakest effort, simply because he went a little bit too far with some of the more juvenile humor. So, if I had to toss a Folds album off my island, this would be the one.
But let me just add that, for me personally, I still find a weak Folds album better than much of what I hear from other artists.
Yes, I agree with that wholeheartedly. I don’t agree about ‘Cologne,’ though… mostly because I find the chorus lacking, especially the countdown part.
I understand that the countdown might be a bit boring in a way, but I actually find the song as a whole devastatingly powerful.
in a world full of ten million breakup songs, I don’t know if i have heard one with quite this take on things–the notion that you, in a way, keep “forgetting” that you are no longer with this person you clearly loved for so long and that you (and she) must continue to work on moving past each other. That’s a very poweful emotion, and i think he expresses it very effectively, countdown and all.
I do like how he dedicates a whole verse to the crazy diaper-wearing astronaut as an example of the kind of story he’d love to be able to talk about with his ex.