Records Near And Dear #1. Silver Jews - American Water (1998)
One pretty amusing trope in the music review scene across the online sphere is the stereotypical reminiscent review, in which the reviewer will spend paragraphs talking about how much the album meant to them when they heard it in their older brother’s friend’s girlfriend’s Camaro when they were 17, and how it changed their world, only to give it a 7 and talk very little about the actual music.
And unfortunately, that is exactly what I’m going to do, minus the middling score.
I first heard American Water when my friend and then bandmate Justin showed it to me, almost exactly a year ago now. On first listen, it stylistically wasn’t entirely my thing, as at the end of the day it’s effectively a half indie slacker half country rock album. Over more listens across the summer, it grew on me, but my nose was buried deeper in things like the new King Gizzard album Butterfly 3000 and black midi, who I had discovered and become enthralled with due to the release of Cavalcade. American Water became pushed a bit to the side on occasional rotation, with it most often accompanying late sleepless nights. By all accounts, the summer of 2021 was by far one of the best of my life. My long distance girlfriend flew out to visit, I flew to Texas to visit her and other longtime online friends and bandmates, my final year of college was on the horizon, the puzzle of life was pretty firmly put together. While I knew the music was good, it had a sense of bitterness to it - David Berman’s mellow, laid back to the extreme voice was almost too melancholy for me for it to become a more than once in a while listen, and the music at times felt like it had a too cool to care vibe. Meanwhile, I was living life.
That was how things were, however, until the end of August. Newly single, back from a vacation I desperately wished to stay in, and with things on school’s end more rocky and uncertain than I had realized, I was at a new low. American Water took on a whole new meaning to me. The “dried out indie americana slacker” sound the album had (a phrase trademarked by myself, mind you) reminded me of driving down long Texan roads with some of my best friends, and Berman’s themes of loneliness, loss, apathy, and failed expectations resonated infinitely deeper than they had before. Throughout the fall of 2021, I spun American Water countless times, and with each listen I heard things I’d never heard before in seemingly simple songs and understood lyrics that had gone over my head prior.
Personal highlights of the album include the opener Random Rules, where Berman laments his less than savory past that has led to the absence of someone near to him in his life. On People, Berman puts his own problems into the perspective of others, saying that others will likely be understanding of your issues as they share the burden of their own problems. We Are Real reminds us that no matter what happens in the world and what happens to us, we are still real and ourselves in the purest form possible. In an amusing twist, Honk If You’re Lonely is the closest the album gets to a love song, and the closest the album gets to a pure country sound, rejecting lust for just someone to “make romance” with. Berman leaves us with The Wild Kindness as a closer which may win the spot of my favorite track on the album alongside Random Rules, reminding us that should life ever become too much the wild is always there to welcome us with open arms.
American Water is a prime example of an album that’s immediately accessible - the sound is almost too easy on the ears so long as you don’t mind less than polished vocals, and to play you just need to know a few simple chords. But within these simple songs, there is so much to discover musically, and Berman’s lyrics are an abyss for analysis. Having heard this album upwards of at least 35 times, I know the lyrics front to back and am still realizing what certain lines mean. While David Berman’s music isn’t immensely under the radar, his lyricism rivals that of legends like Bob Dylan, and for that I feel he has yet to receive the credit he’s due. Unfortunately, the Silver Jews story ends here, with Berman taking his own life in 2019, but within his music his incomparable character lives on. There are many reasons to love his music, but I will forever be grateful that I was shown it and for the soundtrack it provided for pivotal times in my life. While this is one of my favorite albums of all time, I can only see myself appreciating it more as time goes on and I learn through my own experience what the songs are truly about. Thank you for the music, David, and I hope you’ve found peace in the wild kindness.
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