Tuna Fish and a Pack of Gum
Pistols and rifles: Dan Baker sings very occasionally about
firearms because they exist, not because he’s trying to grab any mantle from
Charlton Hestons’s cold dead hands. Based near Boston, in a town called
Chelsea, Baker is a gritty singer songwriter in as much as he often snarls and
shouts his songs, and the ghost of Dylan is in that growl somewhere, a lineage
that seems important to me in reflecting musical authenticity, not that Dylan
ever howled like a freight train as Baker does near the end of One of Them. The rawness of so many of
the fine songs on this album also reflects another kind of authenticity, sincerity
over polish, not that the performances aren’t carefully crafted, but just that
their immediacy conveys honesty. I like the simple chronological observations
of Up On The Roof that seem to evoke
the power of music and even a spiritual suggestion, but it gets lost a little
in the drawl, again as if any polish would spoil the sincere stream of
consciousness in the lyric. Musically it is mainly a piano-in-an-empty-room
fullness and the occasional emotive violin of Rob Flax. There’s resignation in
the tone at times, not quite world-weary but pragmatic dismay, as in the album
closer Not Gonna Say It. This is
counter-balanced by my favourite, the comparatively lively Threw Me Down The Well – with Rob Flax’s empathetically tortured
violin – and Baker argues against his lover’s mistreatment with all the pained
anger of defeat. Brilliant. This is followed by another howling in Never Alone where defiance shuns irony
for a genuine declaration of simple pleasures, exemplified in these opening lyrics
I have unraveled a little from the seemingly intoxicated slur,
I got six strings, I
like to strum
...tuna fish, pack of
gum
and I got the moon
shining on my soul
I ain’t ever alone
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