Purple Mountains (RIP David Berman, August 2019)

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.

ugh, my bad on the formatting. i knew it didn't look right but i hit "submit" anyway.

i don't see the purple mountains album as a suicide note btw.

I pretty much do. But have felt hesitant to say it out loud / online.

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.

But this kind of hurtin' won't heal

That's the devastating conclusion of the first song. I know the suicide note thing sounds trite, but it feels like that to me.

I just watched william tyler and Cassie Berman cover silver jews’s punks in the beer light and sure did cry in my car after pic.twitter.com/5H9LPoKMSc

— marty in my mind (@Jorty_Spice) December 1, 2019

is there a video? i love that song

I’ll keep an eye out for one...0

I was wondering how the members of Woods were doing, how they've been feeling since August. It'd be sweet to see more tribute shows, maybe with them? Pretty bummed the Purple Mountains record never got played live.

a snippet here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5ishqDBgpg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

pic.twitter.com/KAGRSUBHob

— Bill Callahan (@BillCallaman) December 4, 2019

I miss him, and will forever.

I finally gave a good listen to the lyrics of “nights that won’t happen.” That song certainly sounds like a suicide note... But the thing ends with “maybe i’m the only one for me” where he describes a future where he resigns himself to loneliness. (“I need to learn to love myself”)... is this just - very cruel kind of irony? And what does it say to his wife who apparently had left him?

As a sufferer of depression I recognize all the thought patterns in these lyrics, and why I loved that he could have such humor about it. The ugly feelings were transmuted into something rollicking and playful, which is really what a lot of American music is about. But like—i feel personally invested in finding hope in this record for some reason

Nice essay about David Berman in the NYT Lives They Lived:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/23/magazine/david-berman-death.html

NYC & Portland, Ore live music tributes looked nice

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

― Heez, Friday, November 15, 2019 10:47 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lots of references to Berman's approaching demise throughout the album, but the third verse of "Snow" is absolutely the most spectral and most sublime of these. It's a little scary almost to contemplate how perfect all those verses are. "Snow" is probably song of the year imo

This was probably my most played album of 2019 and, I think, has my favourite song of the year ... but I'm not really comfortable with the songs that clearly reference his partner, I don't think. Life/great records aren't necessarily about being comfortable but that isn't quite what I mean. Might come back and re-explain when not on wine.

Probably my my most played longplayer too.

Half of the PM album (Happiness, Darkness, Snow, Margaritas, Nights) was nominated for the 2019 tracks poll. Not undeservedly. Any interest in measures to overcome vote-splitting?

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/watch-steve-malkmus-bob-nastanovich-rebecca-gates-more-play-david-berman-tribute-in-portland/

Any interest in measures to overcome vote-splitting?

tbh I'm expecting ppl to gravitate towards "Nights" even without strategery

I think Snow vs Margaritas

I nominated and voted for “Snow.”

I'll certainly vote for "Nights That Won't Happen" either way. Happy to add a further crowd-pleaser...

this is gonna be the ultimate vote splitter. my vote went to 'happiness'

i think it'll get one or two songs on the countdown regardless

just voted for all of em!

Snow will definitely be high on my ballot. Margaritas will be on there somewhere too.

'Snow' seems popular. I'll make that my second PM vote then!

See if you recognize the former ilxor as MC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTXXzdbf6s

The surviving members perform:

Secret Knowledge of Back Roads (Pavement version)
Buckingham Rabbit
Advice to the Graduate
Random Rules
Welcome To The House of the Bats*
Trains Across the Sea

*post-song banter refers to SM wanting Bob to reprise the monologue that Bob did as his first performance on a Pavement record ("Sue Me Jack") in a tribute to his good friends Slint's then-newly-released Spiderland. The monologue lyrics iirc refer to Bob's mom finding a Frederic Remington painting on the cheap somehow. Yes, I know deep Pavement trivia in case you were wondering.

I can't decipher the "Sue Me Jack" monologue, but are you referring to the monologue on "Welcome to the House of the Bats"?

Thanks for sharing that video, btw. And yes, I recognize D. Wolk (I worked w/him a million years ago)

SM asked Bob to do a monologue referencing Remington (i.e. the "Sue Me Jack" bit) during the Bats coda, I'm just providing some trivial background on it.

Cool, I just got to that part in the video (and sorry if I sounded confused -- I was referring to the fact that the Remington monologue can be heard very clearing in the original recording of "House of the Bats"; I didn't realize that the "Sue Me Jack" bit had the same subject, as it's buried so deep in the mix.)

I attended the Portland thing. Was hoping Stephen and Bob would say a bit more about David, but there wasn't much. Ever-guarded Stephen - as you might guess - said basically nothing. Bob had an emotional moment you can watch in the 22nd minute of that video up there.

That pretty much sums the two of them up.

Their relationship and the way it benefitted both of them in Pavement really fascinates me.

That performance was rough.

They didn't practice. The songs are super old and they haven't played them in years. What they did is exactly what I expected (and wanted).

it was great — sounded like early joos.

Another Titans tribute:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7ZWAIMF3Tr/?igshid=1ns9wfh71uam4

Mentioned it in another thread, but I’d like to hear Pet Shop Boys do “Margaritas at the Mall.”

His passing has received more mention from a professional football team than from the Grammys

goes without saying but the grammys have virtually nothing to do with people who make music

it's like an internal company end of year teambuilding award show that is for some reason televised and watched by millions of people