Not every album ever made hits you on first listen. Some albums take a few listens to get used to, digest and enjoy.
“Have you Fed the Fish?” is the perfect example of this for me. Let’s be frank; Badly Drawn Boy is probably not going to do something totally different. He’s not going to revolutionize music, nor is he going to re-invent himself. Let’s not joke around.
You know what you are going to get: pure rock theater (as The Who used to call their sound). His last album, “About a Boy” was indeed a soundtrack, and thematically, HYFTF is not very different. In fact, Damon Gough (the man behind BDB) has stated many times that HYFTF is an album about settling down, having a family, and reaching an age in which you appreciate those things.
I identify with BDB. Like Nick Hornsby and John Cusack, he seems to be into similar stuff, and I certainly enjoy his work. But, there’s something more to him that I enjoy.
He’s familiar. His records are not groundbreaking. They really are nothing surprising, unless you count the fact that they surprise you with how good they are. Every time I listen to HYFTF, I am surprised at how nice it sounds. I liken it to walking through the mall. It’s calming because of it’s familiarity, yet it is surprising at some of the things you see. It’s comfort, yet it is near-perfect comfort.
His lyrics are unabashedly sincere, and his scant irony works very well because of it. In songs like “40 days, 40 Fights,” he sings of domestic bliss and the ensuring fallout with minimal joke in a genre (indie rock) that is overwrought with such irony. He sings of “all possibilities” of his love while crooning over a bizarre horn section that seeps of self-reflection. The emotive questioning of “How?” interrogates the nature of music (“How can I give you the answer you need, when all I possess is a melody?”) slides into the funk of “The Further I Slide.”
He calls into the nature of music again on “You were right,” a sugary sweet lyrical marriage proposal to BDB’s girlfriend (“always hoped you’d be my wife/but I never found the time the time/ for the question to arrive/ I just disguised it in this song”) The lyric “and songs are never quite the answer, just the soundtrack to a life” is the perfect statement of how music is today. The quirky “dream” that BDB has about domestic life living next to the Queen and Madonna is amazing, as is his eulogy/calling off of dead singers (“I remember doing nothing on the night Sinatra/Jeff Buckley/Kurt Cobain/John Lennon” died”). It’s as though you’re peaking into a diary of someone we all know, through shared events, dreams and emotions.
And on the best song on the album, “Born Again” he sings of the cyclic nature of relationships over a relatively rocking riff and awesome backup vocals. “Maybe there’s a reason, there’s something rare going on under my skies” he opens, while the guitar, piano and drums roll over one another. The guitar is as good as BDB can do and the song just plain moves.
And maybe he is born again. One of the largest criticisms of the album has been that its too produced, too changed from his first two. I don’t mind. I love it. Its familiar, comforting, and great.
- Ross Gianfortune
