(My title is also an indirect reference to Doctor Who. If you are one of those people who has a TV, I alert you to the fact that Doctor Who series 3 is starting on CBC this week.)
Perhaps you lived with me in university. If so, you were no doubt subjected to my Dan Bern obsession. Bern is kind of a younger Bob Dylan, complete with an abrasive voice and well-crafted idiosyncratic lyrics. I’ve been a fan since I heard his song “New American Language” on the radio a few years ago. I lately realized that for someone who styles himself a rabid Dan Bern fanatic, I haven’t really been keeping up with his music, so I picked up his newest album “Breathe”. It’s a little different than his earlier stuff, a bit less raw, a bit more understated, but still rooted in his trademark lyrical insight.
The trouble with Dan Bern is that he wrote his best song years ago: New American Language. It’s a meandering stream-of-consciousness soliloquy on the nature of Love and the Free World (but mostly about love), hitting subjects as diverse as Martin Luther King Jr. (the song’s refrain is “I have a dream… of a new American Language / One with a little bit more Spanish”) to the Chicago Bulls. He has a lot of other songs that I like, but none of them touch “New American Language” on power and sheer scope.
The title track of “Breathe” finally approaches “New American Language”. In general, Bern express “pessimism about the present but optimism for the future” very well (it’s a key component of “Language”) and “Breathe” does the same trick. It’s another one of his “Dan talks to God or claims to be the messiah” songs (see: “Jesus’s house” and “Jerusalem”, among others), falling into the latter category. Sample lyrics:
Now with just a couple Snickers and some corn meal mush
I fed six thousand at a time
I spoke in St. Louie, ya gotta play St. Louie
St. Louie, it’s a rule of some kind
The blind came to me and I made ‘em see
Got the deaf diggin’ hi-fidelity
Card tricks, I could do card tricks you wouldn’t believe
I still think “New American Language” is his best song, but “Breathe” reaches in my ear and pushes some of the same buttons. I get goosebumps in the last minute of the song, exactly like I do listening to his earlier masterpiece.
Presently, you can an mp3 of “Breath” from his website: click on “News” and scroll down a little.