Purple Mountains (RIP David Berman, August 2019)

Wow: “For pleasant accidents, “Nights That Won’t Happen”, came out of mishearing “Knight In White Satin” ”

— Marc Masters (@Marcissist) August 21, 2019

^^ from another new recent interview:

https://www.metro.us/entertainment/metro-remembers-david-berman-1967-2019

if you're into thinking about "pleasant accidents" or even unpleasant accidents I recommend clicking through the long history of the mostly desolately populated jibberish infested Silver Jews Bulletin Board, past all the dumb seemingly nonsensical pecker posts, to get to the the 2012-2015 era to find lots of rough drafts of now-familiar song lyrics and a lot of originals about marital dissolution, extramarital sex, Nashville, Brooklyn, alcoholism, homosexuality, suicide, and lots more (probably about 20-25 posts) posted by the poster breedlove, most often also under the lyrical pseudonym Kingston Bunkley, and also sometimes attributed to a "Craig Breedlove." ("Craig" of course being David's pre-Cloud middle name.) It's the same poster at the same time that posted the lyrics to songs called "The Veranda Over the Toy Shoppe" and "Wacky Package Eyes" that seems to line up with up what Bob Nastanovich was saying at the time about two new Silver Jews songs he said they'd written, but then later retracted as a joke. I'd post links to the posts directly but they don't seem to work. Other posts from around the same time suggest this is maybe an account operated by or shared with Chris Stroffolino, but then again there are also posts from breedlove saying "this is not Chris." I'll let the Nick Broomfields of ilx figure that out.

https://i.imgur.com/cYBV2N9.png

http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/18043.html

btw that IP address can be traced to Brooklyn, New York.

(also, he said in an interview that he intentionally chose "Nights that Won't Happen" as a titleplay on "Knights in White Satin," and was surprised when his friends didn't immediately realize it. so, there's that)

breedlove
Snow is Falling, New York City
Mon Jan 26, 2015 22:03
68.175.60.236

Snow is falling in Manhattan, I’ve got my coat, I’ve got my hat on
Falling deepler down in Brooklyn, someone cold that I just took in
Snowflakes causing quite a scene, Staten Island, The Bronx and Queens
Softly falling, oh so pretty, snow is falling, New York City

Falling down on Brooklyn Bridge, from Riverdale down to Bay Ridge
From the narrows, to the heights, falling on the city lights
See the city in a rush, transformed with a quiet hush
Come tomorrow it’s all gone, still it falls on and on

Snow along the sidewalk sweeps, across the city that never sleeps
Children sledding in the park, couples skating after dark
Sounds of laughter in the air, snow plows rushing here and there
Snowmen, snowballs, snowflakes fall, snow draped buildings big and small

Snow is falling in Manhattan, I’ve got my coat, I’ve got my hat on
Falling deeply out in Brooklyn, someone cold that I just took in
Snowflakes causing quite a scene, Staten Island, The Bronx and Queens
Softly falling, oh so pretty, snow is falling, New York City
---
Kingston Bunkley

The more I listen to this, the more I believe it's his finest group of songs (really a musical suicide note). I applaud him for finding a way to write this stuff while (likely) suffering through the worst depression of his life. This album is as chilling as any in recent memory. The fact that it's also hilarious at times is all the more remarkable. Album of the year.

(also, he said in an interview that he intentionally chose "Nights that Won't Happen" as a titleplay on "Knights in White Satin," and was surprised when his friends didn't immediately realize it. so, there's that)

― del griffith, Thursday, August 22, 2019 4:10 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Had a feeling that was the case.

oh duh haha I'm so dense

Bill Callahan did a couple Silver Jews songs last night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sNdNyan_h4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CStDjTZnh2s

I became momentarily and unwittingly internet famous for posting a bad 40-second-clip of one of those. Glad someone else did a better job capturing.
http://pitchfork.com/news/watch-bill-callahan-cover-silver-jews-i-remember-me/

("internet famous" on a very low level but high relative to my day-to-day anonymity)

how many rt

instagram - hundred someodd likes and climbing, but point being that it's in pitchfork

This might have been mentioned but reading that alternative version of Snow is Falling in Manhattan i wonder if it's an (not that) oblique reference to Joyce's The Dead.

It's interesting what he changed with the released version of Snow is Falling in Manhattan - I think its vastly superior to the version KM posted above. Changes the song from a one-dimensional observation/scene of a winter day to a multi-dimensional metaphor for writers/musicians and their relationship with readers/listeners. The song became less repetitive, but deeper.

Put off listening to this until finally today, driving through the mountains of Vermont. Seemed like a good setting. It was a very hard, rewarding listen. Held it together until the 1-2 punch of “I Loved Being My Mother’s Son” and “Nights That Won’t Happen.”

For any Toronto-based fans, there's a tribute happening on the night that would have been the Purple Mountains show

this briefly warmed my spirits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dl__2ILE8k

"there is no leisure with dignity in an unfinished world"

https://anmlcollectve.bandcamp.com/track/ballad-of-reverend-war-character-silver-jews-cover-2

A few weeks ago we planned on seeing Purple Mountains together. Instead we spent the night listening to David’s records and talking about how much his music and art meant to us. He was an inspiration for decades. One we wouldn’t be here without. We’ve been playing covers of his music since 1994 when we first picked up guitars together, so it felt like one of the few things we could do to get through the sadness. The next day we worked on this cover of “Ballad of Reverend War Character”. Per the request from David’s family, all of the proceeds will be donated to MusiCares and Music Health Alliance, so pay as much as you want.
- Avey Tare & Geologist

Looks like Drag City is taking preorders on their website for represses of all the Silver Jews LPs

https://boingboing.net/2019/09/02/my-unfinished-sound-project-wi.html

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/09/12/david-berman-of-silver-jews-remembered/

"Nights That Won't Happen"
...........................................................................Fuck

Yes.

Episode 100: a tribute to the life, words, and music of David Cloud Berman. Songs from Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, stories from @BNastanovich. https://t.co/iu4DjR3Yus

— 3 Songs Podcast (@3songspod) October 14, 2019

That was enjoyable, thanks for sharing that link. It'd be great to hear an unfiltered account of DCBs hijnks, understandable why people would be hesitant to do so though

Heartening (&heartbreaking) to hear about Jeffrey Lewis and DBs respect & admiration for him, Jeff was over the moon to be collabing with him & took it hard afterward.

I so glad that Bob has this podcast, I could listen to him talk about anything for pretty much any length of time.

Jeffrey Lewis is a treasure. One of the few lyricists I can think of that can measure up to DCB (though obviously coming from a very different place).

still best album of the year, even if i can only listen to it in very specific moods and so not really that often.

in fact i'd say it's Mr Berman's best since Bright Flight.

"i loved being my mother's son" is the most heartbreaking song of 2019. oh my god. in the villa or ormen

Tennessee Titans honor David Berman with scoreboard message https://t.co/vU9qnaUDt4 pic.twitter.com/pEXsArZxSG

— Stereogum (@stereogum) November 11, 2019

That rules so much -- I would love to know how it happened, i.e. did someone pay for it, is there a fan in the ownership or mgmt, is he better recognized in Nashville than I realized, etc.

I haven't been able to listen to the record for months -- it's just too heartbreaking.

I can't resist listening, despite it being a long suicide note. Some beautiful songs. Definitely one of his best.

Oral history of DCB's time in Virginia/NYC:

https://news.virginia.edu/content/portrait-artist-oral-history-david-berman-uva

& WTJU is having a tribute/memorial concert this weekend. They put together a band called The Wild Kindness. I am out of the loop so I don't know all the people involved but I see Matt D4tesman, Sh4nn0n W0rrel, G4te, N3d Oldh4m.

closest i've been able to get to listening to the album has been listening to covers & tributes, including repeat listens to this one of Dean Wareham doing 'Snow Is Falling In Manhattan (cant remember if its been posted itt): https://soundcloud.com/section26/dean-wareham-snow-is-falling-in-manhattan

Initially thought of 'Snow' as a pleasant romantic interlude on an otherwise very intense album, its gradually risen in my estimation to my favorite song on the record

I had never listened to this guy before his death (I’m a pavement skeptic) but this album is really great. I know no one needed to hear that, but I wanted to say it.

Snow is the beating heart of the album. It is the song where you get the sense of Berman's warmth and humanity without the weight of his depression.

i've mulled that "songs build little rooms in time" verse over in my head so many times this year and i'm in awe at how perfect it is

Initially thought of 'Snow' as a pleasant romantic interlude on an otherwise very intense album, its gradually risen in my estimation to my favorite song on the record

Most of us haven’t even gotten a winter day to fully appreciate it in.

The horns on Snow... are so damn perfect.

And I crapped on about this upthread but it's become so entwined with Joyce in my head I'm convinced Berman was communing with The Dead when he wrote Snow is Falling on Manhattan.

Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

this record is incredible

i also read actual air recently. really lovely poems.

"if Christ had died in a hallway we might pray in hallways
or wear little golden hallways around our necks."

i don't see the purple mountains album as a suicide note btw. it seems more therapeutic--facing up to the horror of the present in order to shake loose of it.

Nights That Won’t Happen is the only song on here that feels utterly posthumous

The line “I wasn’t done being my mother’s son” gets me every time.

<q>i don't see the purple mountains album as a suicide note btw.</q>

I pretty much do.