heartaches of a fool: phosphorescent
Music January 25th, 2009
Banner day here at the blue trenchcoat. Received a promo CD in the mail that I actually wanted - one that I would have gone out and bought anyway. In the world of endless Slightly Better than Average promo CDs accompanied by massive hype, this is like the birth of a two-headed goat, or a solar eclipse*. As such it may signal the end of days, but meanwhile we will listen to Phosophorescent’s To Willie
I am one of “those” people when it comes to Phosphorescent - he collects seriously dedicated fans, the type of people who will get teary-eyed late at night and staple you to a chair and force you to listen to “Salt and Blues” and say things like, “Wow, man, I mean…do you get this? Are you listening to this?” while you smile weakly and try to remember pressure points from that self-defense class you took in ‘98. But forget it, it’s hopeless: you’re strapped in for the entire ride of A Hundred Times or More
, and by the end you will be one of us. ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
, and by the end you will be one of us. ONE OF US. ONE OF US.“Willie” of the album title is Willie Nelson, of course, who Phosphorescent has covered before to brilliant effect - “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” - and who gets a full album of love here. Not only is it excellent to have another discful of Phosphorescent, it’s also good to be reminded of the songwriting genius who brought us “I Gotta Get Drunk” (“There’s a lot of doctors tell me/That I’d better start slowing it down/But there’s more old drunks than there are old doctors/So I guess we’d better have another round”).
If you think of Willie Nelson as that stoned guy with ponytails who sings “On the Road Again” - well, that’s him, there’s no denying it, but he was also a champion country songwriter long before he had a name as a star. “Crazy” by Patsy Cline - that’s his. (If you think of Willie Nelson as a miniature schnauzer with whooping cough, you are just way, way off. But I want to party with you.)
The standout track for me so far is “The Party’s Over”; it sounds the most distinctly Phosphorescent of all these, which is to say it sounds like the Gregorian Monks got into the Jim Beam. To Willie will be released Feb.3; I won’t post any of it here, because I now feel a great fondness for the Dead Oceans label for sending me this particular silvery disc of digital glory. You must wait. (Or find it elsewhere.) But I have no qualms about posting an earlier Phosphorescent track for the curious:
*in fact I spent a significant amount of time listening to the album through a small hole in a piece of cardboard.