I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE-Tiny Desk Concert #523 (April 18, 2016).

I have literally never seen or heard anyone like Benjamin Clementine.  He sits very tall with the piano keys quite low for him.  And he has such an effortless almost careless way of playing and yet his notes are precise and perfect.  He also faces away from the piano and sings more or less to the audience–as if his voice and hands were two different creatures.  And what a voice!

As the first song, “Condolence,” opens he plays the melody with his left hand, leaving his right hand on his lap as he sings with an intense operatic style.  But not operatic exactly, it’s more like a theatrical voice—like he is performing a dramatic recitation. But also singing these intense, powerful notes (with a vibrato that almost seems comical but is definitely not).  He sprinkles in some high piano notes almost as an afterthought, the way he casually places his hands on the keys.  And all this time, he is sitting on a stool and more or less facing the audience.  The song is five minutes long.  It doesn’t exactly seem to have a chorus–there are lyrical parts that are repeated, but it feels less like a conventional song and more like a story set to music.

When the song is over and he speaks.  He seems so shy and quiet, “Hello America.”  He has a very thick British accent (but now lives in France).

For “Gone” his hands seem to dwarf the piano.  The melody is simple and pretty and then he begins singing with just one word, a low “I” held for five seconds with vibrato.  After that, the lyrics are more or less spoken with his thick middle class accent.  He sings the middle section (with the higher piano notes) and seems to be singing in an upper class accent.  After hitting a long note, he speaks a few lines before singing the last word: “gone” with some beautiful piano notes to accompany.

“Adios” is a much more frenetic musically, but it also feels theatrical.  It is 7 minutes long.

After an intense first section about regrets and bad decisions, there is a spoken section in which he talks of angels and then he switches to a high tenor voice singing an operatic section (like the angels).  As the angelic section ends, he says, “I don’t understand them but as always, they come, they sing to me and they leave eventually.”  The intro music is so catchy and the angelic part so unexpected.  The song is unique.  Definitely not for everyone, but really impressive.

[READ: June 6, 2016] “Anhedonia, Here I Come”

This is the second or third story of Barrett’s that I’ve read.  And like previous stories it took me a while to realize it was set in Ireland.  This is of course my own bias as if I lived in Ireland I’d probably assume it was set there.  But I didn’t.

And frankly the location is irrelevant because this story is about a poet and his attempts at coping with the un-understanding world.

Bobby Tallis is a skinny twenty-something.  He lives in an old housing estate that is populated mostly by old people.  He had nothing to do with them.  Really all he does is walk six miles every day so he can buy weed from a schoolgirl (see, this could be anywhere).

We lean a bit more about Bobby.  He wants to be a poet and has had some of his poetry published, but he makes his living as an artist, which is almost as satisfying (but not quite).  He makes pornographic cartoons according to detailed specifications from his loyal and expanding client base.  (Perverts pay a lot).

But his heart was in the poetry.  His latest collection (unpublished) is called “Anhedonia, Here I Come.”  He has always been smitten by the idea of suicide but he never wanted to kill himself–he liked being alive.

When he sees the school girl (whom he only knows as Becky) there’s someone else buying weed–a guy in a fancy car.  The car drives off and Bobby tries to make conversation with Becky.  But shes having none of it.   As he walks away the guy in the car says he recognized Bobby from a recent poetry night.  Flattered but suspicious, Bobby talks to the guy–who has a baby in the car.  The whole exchange is interesting, but I’ll only mention this dialogue:

“That your baby?”
The man shifted in his seat. “Oh, uh.  Oh no.”
“That’s a disconcerting answer.”

As he walked home he checked his messages and saw one from Fiachra Calhoun, a man he would normally avoid on a midweek afternoon. He was fifty something and animated but when he drank he looked to be about 200.  Fiachra was a publisher and had published some of Bobby’s poems.

But today he was with Jess, a pretty college-aged woman.  Fiachra explained that he is publishing her first poetry collection that spring. Upon hearing this, “Bobby had an immediate urge to punch both of them in the face.”  (He didn’t).

The rest of the story is about their time at the bar and the strange event that happens when he gets home.

The story felt like it could have had a ton more added to it–it might make a good novel–but it was satisfying in the way it ended, too.  The details really made the story.