Oh Carissa, when I first saw you
You were a lovely child
And the last time I saw you
You were 15 and pregnant and running wild
With these opening lines to the year's best album, deeply personal and striking poetry redound into something unforgettable. We learn that Mark Kozelek left Ohio years ago and had pretty much "forgotten all about" his "little second cousin," though he had likely seen her at a family funeral among so many other relatives. One morning he wakes up to a number of missed calls from his mother. When he calls her back, she explains through tears that "Carissa burned to death last night in freak accident fire," her daughter finding her body outside after coming home late from a party. Shockingly, Kozelek reveals that she died the "same way as my uncle who was her grandfather; an aerosol can blew up in the trash, goddamn what were the odds?" She "was just getting ready to go to her midnight shift as an RN in Wadsworth" when she "vanished up in flames."
Carissa was 35
You don't just raise two kids
And take out your trash and die
This is what passes for a chorus hook in
Benji's cosmology, a line that is jaw-droppingly, achingly empathetic. "
Carissa" may be the most heartbreaking song in a catalog filled with heartbreaking songs, the personal nature of her death too tangible, too close to home.
She was my second cousin,
I didn't know her well at all
But that doesn't mean that I wasn't
Meant to find some poetry
To make some sense of this
To find a deeper meaning
In this senseless tragedy
Oh Carissa, I'll sing your name across every sea
So Kozelek returns to Ohio "to get a look at the landscapes, to get a look at those I'm connected by blood and see how it all may have shaped me," but most of all, he returns to "find out as much as I can about my little second cousin Carissa," because "it is her life and death that I'm helplessly drawn." Thus begins an unflinching journey almost unparalleled in American songwriting. A parade of death and solace and more death that leaves one breathless, crushed, and bewildered. But it is only by returning home, by acknowledging those moments and people that have touched our lives, that we can connect with some deeper meaning.
On Sun Kil Moon's sixth album,
Benji, Kozelek chronicles his roots in Ohio, his emergence as an artist, and his everyday life in the here and now. The record is a staggering aesthetic achievement, the sharp-edged culmination of his recent shift to diaristic, seemingly tossed-off lyrics, a beat poet with a nylon-string guitar. From his world-weary, unmetered cadences, he unravels the sweeping and small moments of his life--the tragic, the painful, the touching--and moves his lyricism into peerless songwriting territory. After the painstaking and elegant poetry of
Admiral Fell Promises, his plainspoken approach first emerged on 2011's
Among the Leaves and has since produced some of the finest songs of his career on
Perils from the Sea,
Mark Kozelek & Desertshore, and the incomparable
Benji.
We hear about the untimely death of Kozelek's uncle, ("Truck Driver"), the senseless death of boys and girls at Newtown Elementary School ("Pray for Newtown"), the assisted death of Jim Wise's wife ("Jim Wise"), the death of the Night Stalker's victims and the serial killer himself ("Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes"), the death of a classmate ("I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same"), and the death of his grandma and his friend Brett ("Micheline"), among others. Kozelek even worries about his mother's death even though she is very much alive ("I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love").
My mother is 75
She's the closest friend I have in my life
Take her from me, I'll break down and ball
And wither away like old leaves in the fall
The resulting collage is fierce art. Consequently, this album is not for everyone, and it is certainly not for every occasion. After hearing "
I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love," Mrs. D Man could not bear to listen to another word. The world is a colder place without your mother, and while Kozelek anxiously worries about the day he loses his closest friend, Mrs. D Man actually experienced such loss in 2014 with the passing of her dear mother, Susan. Mrs. D Man was troubled by the emotionally direct (
depressing!) subject matter, and the tragedies of strangers, in the wake of her own tragic loss, were an extra, unbearable load. Her reaction is entirely understandable.
Yet Kozelek's keen observations about the difficult subject matter is what gives life and force to his art. The integrity of the album is in his detailed descriptions, his ability to find the shared humanity in every person that has passed through his life; his relatives, his friends, and, yes, even strangers are treated with unvarnished dignity. The ability to fully transform someone from "other," to see them as a subject rather than object, is only possible through the revelations of humility and love. Rarely has a songwriter written in such a profoundly empathetic fashion about other people, which here, pass through his life like a film or a dream.
The ephemera is also vital.
Benji's wordcount comes in at 5,287, surpassing most rap albums; the exhaustive references even
spawned a glossary. Kozelek manages to sing about
Scrabble, grandfather clocks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, wasp stings, Dominos Pizza,
Happy Days, serial killers, Ronald Reagan, the Ayatollah, Stevie Nicks, baked beans, Led Zeppelin, albinos, Paul McCartney, aneurysms, lizards,
Young Americans, sports bars, and, of course, the lovable dog in the movie
Benji, to name just a few. In his unfurling narratives, the necessary and the mundane are
all necessary; he refuses to distinguish between the two. As a result, the art is in the unexpected and emotional collisions, when the mundane becomes the necessary. His minute observations often frame the ambiguities of his crucial experiences, and by doing so, the stuff of his life somehow becomes more than just stuff.
Kozelek's guitar playing is, as always, exquisite. His patient and nuanced finger patterns over his nylon-string guitar are transfixing, and in some songs, like the gloriously hazy "I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same," it is all that is required. Other songs enjoy small flourishes in production, such as the Rhodes piano in "Jim Wise," the menacing percussion in "Richard Ramirez," or the lush saxophones in "Ben's My Friend." The album's sequencing is impeccable; no song is out of place.
It is near impossible to pick a favorite moment. "Carissa" hung with me for weeks. "I Can't Live Without My Mother's Love" caught me in the throat more than once. On "
Pray for Newtown," Kozelek writes his most topical song ever, as he describes a series of violent shootings that have followed him all over the world; "it was everyday America and that's all." He keeps turning on the television (
don't turn on the television, Mark!) to hear about another senseless slaughter.
December 14th, another killing went down
I got a letter from a fan he said Mark say a prayer for Newtown
I ain't one to pray, but I'm one to sing and play
For women and children and moms and dads and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts
December 25th, and I was just laying down
I picked up a pen, I wrote a letter to the guy in Newtown
I said I'm sorry about the kids and the teachers who lost their lives
I felt it coming on, I felt it in my bones and I don't know why
So when Christmas comes and you're out running around
Take a moment to pause and think of the kids who died in Newtown
On "
I Love My Dad," Kozelek switches gears and displays his biting humor in a ramshackle tribute to his father, who, though far from perfect, taught important life lessons. When young Mark came home from school crying because they sat him next to an albino, his father explained to him that "you gotta love all people, pink, red, black, or brown," and "then just after dinner he played me the album
They Only Came Out at Night by Edgar Winter." Sometimes, the lessons were a little more painful:
When I was young my father taught me not to gloat
If I came home too proud of myself I'd get wrestled to the floor and choked
But I forgive him for that
He was an eighth grade drop out and I was being a brat
I forgive him, I do
I know that he loves me and he knows I love him too
On "
I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same," Kozelek sweeps across his life with the delicate picks of his nylon-string, remembering the inspiration he received from watching the Led Zeppelin film at a Canton mall with friends, apologizing for the time he punched a classmate during recess, describing his lifelong bout with melancholy, and thanking the former head of label 4AD "for discovering my talent so early, for helping me along in this beautiful musical world I was meant to be in."
On "
Richard Ramirez," after an intense stream-of-consciousness rant, he finishes the song with a savage, off-kilter, Modest Mouse-inspired guitar solo. On "
Micheline," he sweetly acknowledges the lives of his handicapped neighbor, his friend Brett, and his grandmother, and his chorus refrains are moving in their sincerity.
My grandma, my grandma, my grandma, my grandma, my grandma! On "
Ben's My Friend," the year's best album closer, he provides the perfect palette cleanser, a saxophone-infused change of pace and direction after so much guitar-strewn heaviness. The song is a hilarious description of middle-aged ennui and a rare glimpse of male friendship, as Kozelek relays his experience attending his close friend's concert, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie.
And though I'm contented, there's a tinge of competitiveness
But Ben's my friend and I know he gets it
Then in a couple days my meltdown passed
Back to the studio doing twelve hour shifts
Singing a song about one thing or another
Another day behind the microphone this summer
No doubt that Kozelek will continue to sing songs about one thing or another. His output during the last five years has been prolific. As a result, longtime listeners have been slightly amused with
Benji's universal acclaim and widespread reach into new audiences, so there is an urge to remind everyone of prior masterpieces, such as the haunting elegies of
Ghosts of the Great Highway or the graceful introspection of
April, to say nothing of the Red House Painters 90's heyday. That said, however,
Benji is unlike anything he has produced, arresting and devastating.
If albums were contending for the equivalent of the Great American Novel,
Benji would be on the shortlist. Along with the likes of
Blonde on Blonde,
Bridge Over Troubled Water,
Red Headed Stranger,
Nebraska,
Rain Dogs, and
Illinois, to name a handful,
Benji is a cohesive, thematic whole, both a literate masterwork and musical achievement
. Its forceful, internal consistency, and its lively lyrical content--sprawling and off-the-cuff--is unlike any other album. Dylan's literate coyness would never allow him to be so self-deprecating. Simon's spry grace could never unleash such a flurry of unkempt observations. Springsteen lacks the imaginative powers to believe that standing in line at Panera Bread is anything more than standing in line at Panera Bread. Even tough "indie" lyricists like Tom Waits or Issac Brock would be hard-pressed to match Kozelek's autobiographical poignancy. These observations are not criticisms of other artists, but an attempt to demonstrate just how aesthetically original
Benji is in America's rich songwriting landscape.
