Buried in the usual “Where Were You When?” inquiries (when 9/11 happened? when you first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit? when you first heard that Amy Winehouse, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon, Bob Marley, MLK, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy had died?, etc.), we would add:  Where were you when you first heard one of America’s unheralded greats, Silver Jews?

Okay, so that last one might be more of a soliloquy.  But we will never forget that first time we heard Silver Jews.  We were bored and heat-seeking in some ski shop in Tahoe in the winter of 1994 when we were momentarily jarred by the sounds coming out of the store’s speakers. “Hey, Ski Store Dude, when did the new Pavement come out??”  Ski Store Dude:  “Nah, it’s the Silver Jews, but yeah you got the Malkmus part right.”  We’ll admit:  we had no idea Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement) was in another band with Bob Nastanovich (also of Pavement), that was led by their college friend David Berman.  From that winter day on we have been silvery fans of the argent Silver Jews.  With a unique mix of indie rock, country components, and Berman’s singular lyricism and evocative vocal phrasing, Silver Jews immediately caught our attention.  While Silver Jews never made a splash with their live playing (in part because of Berman’s stage-reticence), their songs caught part of the world off guard and imprisoned us.  If you haven’t heard their songs, do yourselves a favor and spend some quality time with them below.  We have recently spent most of our musical hours reliving the band’s seminal songs.  Silver Jews’ leader, David Berman, officially disbanded the band in 2009, but we hope its not the last we hear of Berman or this band.

If you’re short on time, scroll down and listen to their great song, Random Rules.  And then come back and savor them all.

As background, Silver Jews were formed in 1989 (a great year) while Berman, Malkmus and Nastanovich were attending the University of Virginia.  After graduating, the lads moved to New York City and parallel universes developed.  One universe was Silver Jews, while the other was Pavement (which busy-boy Malkmus formed with hometown friend, Scott Kannberg).

Silver Jews released a couple of EPs, but it was Pavement that released the first full album (“Slanted and Enchanted”) in 1992, followed by the seminal “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” in early 1994.  It wasn’t until after the release of those two albums that Silver Jews released their first album, “Starlite Walker,” in the fall of 1994.  As a result, Silver Jews would wrongly be characterized for years as a “Pavement side-project.”

Berman, Malkmus and Nastanovich were a potent mix on Starlite Walker.  Berman conceived the songs in the woods of Oxford, Mississippi, and Malkmus and Nastanovich helped musically attire their bare-bones frames before the songs were recorded at Easley Studios (since destroyed by fire) in Memphis.  On Starlite Walker, Berman displayed lyrical wisdom beyond his years (he would years-later release a highly-revered book of poetry entitled, “Actual Air“), and the band provided us great songs and instrumentals, a couple of which (frankly) may have warranted the accusations by Mark E. Smith of The Fall, that Silver Jews were wearing The Fall’s influence a little too prominently on their sleeves (an accusation that Smith more famously leveled against Pavement).  On Starlite Walker, the band gave us a song for the ages: Advice to the Graduate. Lyrically the song provided a rare (for Berman) rosy-outlook that roundly resonated.  And Malkmus’s signature vocals graced the chorus.  Check it out all you new graduates (you know who you are).  And make sure you heed the salient embedded advice:  “Don’t believe in people who say it’s all been done.”

“If you got a message
Leave your name and number,
And we’ll get back to you.

Sleep on your back
And ash in your shoes
And always use the old sense of the words
Your third drink will lead you astray
Wandering down the backstreets of the world

On the last day of your life
Don’t forget to die
The things that you do
Will always make your mama cry.

Chorus:
Well I know you got a lot of hope for
The new men (2x)

So you’ve got no friends and
You wander through the night
And now you watch the sunrise through a rifle-sight
Well don’t believe in people who say it’s all been done
They have time to talk because their race is run

So get in some licks
And hold your head up
And soon you’ll be drinkin’ from that crystal cup.

Chorus (2x)

Good morning…to the new world…”

Silver Jews–Advice to the Graduate

Following Starlite Walker, in 1996 Silver Jews released our favorite of their albums, “The Natural Bridge.” For reasons irrelevant to the songwriting of the Silver Jews, The Natural Bridge left off Malkmus and Nastanovich (both too busy with Pavement?), leaving Berman to bridge the gap and extend the lead on his own.  As a result the songs are more personal and darker, and the sounds of The Fall were barely discernible.  Songs such as How to Rent a Room, Pet Politics, Dallas and Frontier Index helped to show that Starlite Walker was no fluke and that Berman was a songwriting force.

Silver Jews–How to Rent a Room

“No, I don’t really want to die
I only want to die in your eyes
I’m still here below the chandelier
Where they always used to read us our rights

I want to wander through the night
As a figure in the distance even to my own eye
Have you ever rented a room
Have you ever even rented a room

An anchor lets you see the river move
But now that your evil dreams came true
There on your face
A row of teeth he’ll come to replace

I know you laughed when I left
But you really only hurt yourself
When you see your curtains move in the wind
You can bet I’m betting against you again

‘Cause I’m a man who has a wife who has a mother
Who married one but she loved another
You’re a tower without the bells
You’re a negative wishing well

I should have checked the stable door
For the name of the sire and dam
You were always at the dog track
With your brother and all his friends

Chalk lines around my body
Like the shoreline of a lake
Your laughter made me nervous
It made your body shake too hard

Now there’s a lot of things that I’m gonna miss
Like thunder down country and the way water drips
When you’re running for the door in the rain
Read the metro section
Read the metro section
Read the metro section… See my name

No I didn’t really want to die
I only want to die in your eyes
Grant me one last wish
Life should mean a lot less than this
Grant me one last wish
Life should mean a lot less than this”

Silver Jews–How to Rent a Room

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-How-To-Rent-A-Room.mp3|titles=01 How To Rent A Room]

On Pet Politics, Berman bared his soul and gave us some of the best lines ever put to music.

“Guard my bed
while the rain turns the ditches to mirrors
buy a vase of carnations
from central Ohio where the looking machine can’t hear us.
deep in the night we dream of positions
there’s a line for the phone in the hall
and in the cold places where Spanish is spoken,
most wars end in the fall.
you never know when your pet will go.
pet politics

still wearing last night’s mascara
now that her pet was gone for sure.
she was shivering so hard,
it looked like there were two of her.
i can see through the sleeve on her blouse
the mute plans of her architect lover.
a tattoo of a boarded up house,
an ink door that belonged to another.
when the rain hits you, it hits you slow.
stitch after stitch.
stitch after stitch.

adam was not the first man,
though the bible tells us so.
there was one created before him
whose name we do not know.
he also lived in the garden,
but he had no mouth or eyes.
one day adam came to kill him
and he died beneath these skies.
i find it so amazing how
i go where i’m lead.
i go where i’m lead.
i go where i’m lead.
i go where i’m lead.

i suspect we could be losing now.
please guard my bed.
please guard my bed.

Silver Jews–Pet Politics.

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Pet-Politics.mp3|titles=02 Pet Politics]

Black and Brown Blues is a jaunty song that belies the seriousness of the lyrics.  Once again Berman tosses off stunning lines, and ends with one of our favorites stanzas of all-time.

“Baby let’s get dressed up
I got two pairs of shoes
Darling you look so beautiful
when your hair’s all hung in jewels
and sometimes I find it really hard to choose
between a pair of black and a pair of brown shoes

When I’m high on batwings
up by the silvery moon
I think of a certain sad eyed king
trapped in his golden room
and I dream of a cold river on the way
to come and sweep that king into this black and brown bay

Well the water looks like jewelry
when it’s coming out the spout
and nothing could make me feel better
than a wet kiss on the mouth
Fake I.D.’s and honeybees
the jagged skyline of car keys
I never knew the bird could fly so low

Rub out the catlight,
rub out the village
red and white exit light
that’s exodus damage
Why don’t people think of who they use?
Why don’t you try and come and get me: Black and Brown Blues

It’s raining triple sec in ‘Tchula
and the radio plays “Crazy Train”
there’s a quadroon ball in the beehive
hanging out in the rain
and when there’s trouble I don’t like running
but I’m afraid I got more in common
with who I was than who I am becoming

When I go downtown
I always wear a corduroy suit
cause it’s made of a hundred gutters
that the rain can run right through
but a lonely man can’t make a move
if he can’t even bring himself to choose
between a pair of black and a pair of brown shoes”

Silver Jews–Black and Brown Blues

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Black-And-Brown-Blues.mp3|titles=03 Black And Brown Blues]

On Dallas, Berman continued his lyrical bent, which vacillated between the incoherent and coherent, but lit up the literate liturgy in between.

“I passed out on the fourteenth floor
the CPR was so erotic
a blizzard blew in through the door
and little glowing cum buckets in her ankles

O Dallas you shine with an evil light
O Dallas you shine with an evil light
How’d you turn a billion steers
into buildings made of mirrors,
and why am I drawn to you tonight?

Once you taste the geometry of a church in a cul-de-sac
you’re gonna want to sit with the bad kids in the back
Cruising down Commerce
killing time in the blazing sun
Is it true your analyst was a placekicker for the Falcons?

We saw B.B.King on General Hospital
in the Oak Cliff dramhouse where we stayed
and when Clancy whipped her with his belt buckle
he cleaned her cuts and then we prayed

O Dallas you shine with an evil light
Don’t you know that God stays up all night?
And how did you turn a billion steers
into buildings made of mirrors,
and why am I drawn to you tonight?

Watching the makeup girls make out with the mannequins
“Hey boys, supper’s on me, our record just went aluminum”

Poor as a mouse every morning
rich as a cat every night
Some kind of strange magic happens
when the city turns on her lights”

Silver Jews–Dallas

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-Dallas.mp3|titles=06 Dallas]

In 1998 the band (including Malkmus, who is prominently featured throughout) released what many believe to be their (or anyone else’s) finest album, “American Water.” The album includes some of the bands’ best and most varied playing, including brass, flute, and alternating jazz, jangle, thrash and wah-wah guitar-work.  The Pavement side of the band’s equation is most apparent on American Water (just listen to People, Blue Arrangements and Federal Dust). But most importantly, Berman continued to write stunning songs, chief of which is one of our absolute favorites of all-time, Random Rules.

On Random Rules, Berman opens with two of  his signature lines, and goes on to unleash some of the best couplets to ever capture the de-coupling of a couple while in the throes of addiction.  And the mournful horns on the chorus and throughout always rend us.  We’re not sure we’ve heard too many more affecting lyrics than when Berman sings: “But before I go I’ve gotta ask you, dear, about the tan line on your ring finger.” A beauty.

Silver Jews–Random Rules

“In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection.
Slowly screwing my way across Europe, they had to make a correction.
Broken and smokin’ where the infrared deer plunge in the digital snake.
I tell you, they make it so you can’t shake hands when they make your hands shake.

I know you like to line dance, everything so democratic and cool,
But baby there’s no guidance when random rules.

I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men’s room walls.
Maybe I’ve crossed the wrong rivers and walked down all the wrong halls.
But nothing can change the fact that we used to share a bed
and that’s why it scared me so when you turned to me and said:

“Yeah, you look like someone
Yeah you look like someone who up and left me low.
Boy, you look like someone I used to know.”

I asked the painter why the roads are colored black.
He said, “Steve, it’s because people leave
and no highway will bring them back.”
So if you don’t want me I promise not to linger,
But before I go I’ve gotta ask you, dear, about the tan line on your ring finger.

No one should have two lives,
now you know my middle names are wrong and right.
Honey we’ve got two lives to give tonight.”

Silver Jews–Random Rules

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-Random-Rules.mp3|titles=01 Random Rules]

And check out the video for Random Rules that we just unearthed.

And just to prove that Silver Jews weren’t just about the ballads, check out the rollicking Smith & Jones Forever below.  The song seems to capture America’s impoverished stealing from cars, and wearing duct tape shoes and extension-cord belts.  A song in part about America’s generic poor:  Smiths and Jones.  In the end, Berman seems to depict those same fiscally poor as also being morally poor in their willingness to hitchhike across a distance just to witness the execution of a wanted criminal.  A song about media manipulation or quoi?  We’ll leave you to crack the code.

Silver Jews–Smith & Jones Forever

“Are you honest when no one’s looking?
Can you summon honey from a telephone?
They sat there with their hooks in the water
and their moustaches caked with airplane glue.

o come let us adore them
California overboard
when the sun sets on the ghetto all the broken stuff gets cold.

Smith and Jones forever!
Smith and Jones forever!
Smith and Jones forever together forever and ever.

Build a stage for Autumn’s bitch.
They walk the alleys in duct tape shoes.
They see the things they need through the windows of a hatchback
The alleys are the footnotes of the avenues.

o come let us adore them
California overboard
holding up their trousers with extension cords.

(chorus)

I’ve got two tickets to a midnight execution.
We’ll hitchhike our way from Odessa to Houston
and when they turn on the chair
something’s added to the air
when they turn on the chair
something’s added to the air forever

(chorus)”

Silver Jews–Smith & Jones Forever

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Smith-Jones-Forever.mp3|titles=02 Smith & Jones Forever]

Following American Water, the band released “Bright Flight” in 2001.  Once again minus Malkmus, Berman added sweetheart Cassie Marrett (who later became Mrs. Berman) and other replacements.  As a result, Bright Flight sounds more like The Natural Bridge than other Silver Jews albums, with more of a solo vision.  Bright Flight also has more of the influence of Nashville, where Berman and Cassie had settled in.   You can hear it in Berman’s more drawling voice, the pedal steel and honky-tonk piano.  And of course Berman entwines with his witty-yet-pained lyrics, including simple puns like on Horseleg Swastikas (“Water doesn’t give a damn”).  There are also great singalongs throughout on Time Will Break the World and Let’s Not and Say We Did.  Check out some of the Bright Flight songs below, including the raving Let’s Not and Say We Did.

Silver Jews–Horseleg Swastikas

“I’m drunk on a couch in Nashville
In a duplex near the reservoir
And every single thought is like a punch in the face
I’m like a rabbit freezing on a star

On the wrong side of Sunday morning
Shattered in the terrible light
Working for a bankrupt circus
On the wrong side of Saturday night

And I wanna be like water if I can
‘Cause water doesn’t give a damn
Water doesn’t give a damn

Chased by a floating hatchet
You can’t just shoot your way out and go
I could tell you things about this wallpaper
That you’d never ever want to know

But there’s an altar in the valley
For things in themselves as they are
And the triumph the obstacle
And horseleg swastikas

I wanna take a ride on the back of a sunbird
Up into the highest numbers
Up into the highest numbers

And I wanna be like water if I can
‘Cause water doesn’t give a damn
Water doesn’t give a damn”

Silver Jews–Horseleg Swastikas

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/05-Horseleg-Swastikas.mp3|titles=05 Horseleg Swastikas]

Silver Jews–Slow Education

“When God was young
He made the wind and the sun
And since then
It’s been a slow education
And you got that one idea again
The one about dying

Oh, oh, oh I’m lightning
Oh, oh, oh I’m rain
Oh, oh, oh it’s frightening
I’m not the same
I’m not the same
I’m not the same

There’s a screen door banging in the wind
Remember you wanted to be like George Washington back then
Everybody going down on themselves
No pardon mes or fare-thee-wells in the end
And you got that one idea again
The one about dying

Oh, oh, oh I’m lightning
Oh, oh, oh I’m rain
Oh, oh, oh it’s frightening
I’m not the same
I’m not the same
I’m not the same”

Silver Jews–Slow Education

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-Slow-Education.mp3|titles=01 Slow Education]

Silver Jews–Let’s Not and Say We Did

“Let’s go hunting blackbirds
Let’s throw snowballs from the bridge
The fireplace burns backwards
Let’s not and say we did
There’s a trapdoor in the country
Where we can disappear.

These giant evergreens
Are a promise redeemed
Let’s walk down the glassy top of a frozen pasture stream
Our minds can dream like soda machines
And that’s exactly what we did

Let’s ride down the ridge
To the military bridge
You can’t be against forever
Let’s not and say we did
There’s a party in the country
Where we can disappear

Dig if you will
A picture of you, girl
Finding the fiercest way to live
We could ride all day in a one horse open sleigh
And that’s exactly what we did
And that’s exactly what we did”

Silver Jews–Let’s Not and Say We Did

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/07-Lets-Not-and-Say-We-Did.mp3|titles=07 Let’s Not and Say We Did]

 

Following Bright Flight, the band went on a four-year hiatus during which, sadly, Berman sunk into depression and addiction and a (thankfully) failed suicide attempt.  Fortunately, family and friends (including Malkmus, Nastanovich and Will Oldham, amongst a throng) rallied ’round Berman and helped to lift him back up.  They eventually went back into the studio and put together the band’s most polished album, “Tanglewood Numbers,” released in 2005.   Berman didn’t pull any punches on the album, and it is at times heavy, though the polish of the music and the sounds of recovery and lofty vision leaven the load.  Surprisingly (given the circumstances) the album didn’t move us nearly as much as the earlier offerings.  Nonetheless, check out the punkish There is a Place (with it’s “I saw God’s shadow on this world” refrain) and Animal Shapes (“God must be carving clouds into animal shapes”).

Silver Jews–There is a Place

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/10-There-Is-A-Place.mp3|titles=10 There Is A Place]

Silver Jews–Animal Shapes

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Animal-Shapes.mp3|titles=04 Animal Shapes]

Silver Jews’ final (for now) album would be 2008’s “Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea,” which was very well received by critics.  But perhaps the writing was on the wall as Berman would call it quits in 2009.  We loved Suffering Jukebox in particular off this album.  With it’s country swagger, the song can seem to merely refer to juked jukeboxes in desultory honky-tonk dives around the country.  More likely though, the song is autobiographical and addresses the state of the music industry and Berman’s place within it.  But we also wonder if the song’s title isn’t in some fashion Berman’s tip-of-the-hat to old nemesis, Mark E. Smith, and The Fall’s great song, Rebellious Jukebox. Hopefully Berman will come back and tell all.

Silver Jews–Suffering Jukebox

“Cranes on the downtown skyline is a sight to see for some
it ought to make a few reputations in the cult of number one
while these seconds turn these minutes into hours of the day
all these doubles drive the dollars and the light of day away

suffering jukebox such a sad machine
your filled up with what other people need
and they never seem to turn you up loud
there are a lot of chatterboxes in this crowd

suffering jukebox in a happy town
you’re over in the corner breaking down
they always seem to keep you way down low
the people in this town don’t want to know

well I guess all that mad misery must make it seem to true to you
but money lights your world up, you’re trapped what can you do?
you got Tennessee tendencies and chemical dependencies
you make the same old jokes and malaprops on cue

suffering jukebox such a sad machine
your filled up with what other people need
hardship, damnation and guilt
make you wonder why you were even built

suffering jukebox in a happy town
you’re over in the corner breaking down
they always seem to keep you way down low
the people in this town don’t want to know”

Silver Jews–Suffering Jukebox

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/08-Suffering-Jukebox.mp3|titles=08 Suffering Jukebox]

 

If you want to keep abreast of Berman and his synapses, you can check out his relatively recent blog, Menthol Mountains, HERE.