Every so often an album comes along that you can’t take your mind off of no matter how hard you try and makes it difficult to listen to anything else. As I’ve gotten older this has happened less and less frequently (party because of how much more music I’ve heard and party for being overwhelmed by the realization of how much more music out in the world to listen to), but last week while driving up to New York I heard Sun Kil Moon’s new album “Benji” and after listening to it basically on repeat since, I've realized I have never heard an album quite like this before.
Initially I was pretty shocked at how lyrically it is incredibly dark, but how simultaneously it has a certain humor about itself. And despite this strange emotional juxtaposition - it also seemed incredibly honest. It has a trailer-trash poetry vibe that first reminded me Isaac Brock (of Modest Mouse), which makes sense since they are friends - but has more of a rapped flow (such as on "Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes"), is darker..and even more embracing of trailer-trash culture (for lack of a better term). In not only a humorous way, but embracing it with his full heart authentically. Whether it’s frying frog legs, serving KFC at funerals, or burning trash...I mean…there’s two songs that are dedicated to his relatives who burned to death in freak aerosol can explosion/trash-fire accidents that are both emotive and beautiful (“Carissa" and “Truck Driver”).
And after listening to it more and more - the thing that I dig most about this album lyrically is how literal all of it is. The lyrics are very verbose and stream of consciousness, but all are very much events that happened or his feelings about these events. And there are a lot of references that are initially kind of shocking hearing in song (such as the multiple times Panera Bread is mentioned and a wide variety of music references), as well as how straightforward and openly he addresses and sings about people on this album, such as the tracks about his parents “I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love” and “I Love My Dad”. And when he sings about tragic events that happen on this album, such as the shootings in Newtown, it’s done not only in a way that pays respects to those effected - but effectively uses these tragic events to paint a bigger picture. And this is what to me is most impressive and emotive about his writing - is he’s able to say something so poignant and make the listener feel something so transcendental while all the while avoiding being metaphorical or abstract in what he’s singing about.
Let me briefly talk about an anecdote involving my dad and brother to further expand upon this point: So my dad digs really sad songs. The ones he’s often most drawn to are the ones full of melancholy, death, and tragedy. For example one of his favorite songs of recent artists is “John Wayne Gacy Jr” by Sufjan Stevens. We give him a lot of shit about it - in a joking and loving way of course. But anyway, to get to the point - my dad once proposed a song idea of his to me and my brother about someone who worked in the twin towers. The song was written from the perspective of someone in the tower after it had been hit, addressing his wife who he felt he never truly let know how much he cared for her. He wanted to write the words and me to write the music. While I didn’t want to discourage my dad’s attempt at this creative idea and trying to see what he was trying to tap into with it, my brother quickly responded “You can’t do that!!!!”, since my dad wasn’t there at the tragedy. My dad argued he would be using the event and people’s ties to it to say something about something bigger with the song. After hearing out both sides of the argument, I had to agree with my brother as this song idea seemed to aim at moving the listener’s hearts more with the connection to this tragedy than their connection with the music itself. We then joked about this and the idea of an album where every song was about a different tragedy.
And anyway - after hearing this album I’ve realized that this album is basically the real deal of what my dad was sort of aiming for and what we were later joking about in a lot of ways (and avoids just using these events to tug at the strings in people's hearts). I mean, he mentions the San Ysidro McDonald’s Massacre, the terrorist attacks in Oslo, Norway, the shooting at the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the shootings at the Clackamas Town Center in Clackamas Oregon, and the shooting in Newtown - all just in the song “Pray for Newtown”. And a ton of this record really does focuses on death - not just the death of those in these tragedies, but the the death of relatives and friends and animals...and I can’t exactly describe how - but there is a sense of humor in this darkness that works and still pays tribute and is extremely moving. Where one could either laugh or cry to the same song, and either reaction would be totally reasonable.
And musically, I dig every choice that was made - which is something that is rather rare for me with artists in this genre (modern-folk, indie-rock and such) and if went into my thoughts on it musically god only knows how long this post would be…
But just check it out already:
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