Firstly, let’s acknowledge that it’s been seven long years since I last wrote anything for this blog. Indeed my last entry was posted on the 1st of December, 2017, which also happened to be the review of a Bonnie Prince Billy 7”. I don’t remember why I stopped, but I guess I just got tired of this labour of love. Anyway, I’m back and I’d like to finish the job, the job being a completist collection of reviews for every piece of Will Oldham vinyl that’s ever been released. So let’s get on with it.
Here we have another one-off 7” single from an obscure label out of the Netherlands called Tiny Room Records, although the Netherlands and Will Oldham seem to have had a love affair that goes a long way back. It’s a split 7” with an outfit called Naked Shortsellers. Who dey? No idea. This 7” is the only release listed under their name on Discogs, and that was 2018. They’ve released nothing else since. They’ve done one song basically. Judging by the names of the band members, not that I speak Dutch, one can safely assume they’re a Dutch group. When you click on their names you find that at least three of them belong to a range of other projects, and that indeed the Naked Shortsellers does appear to be a one-off. The 7” comes in a fancy origami type sleeve, folded flower-like to hold the record inside, and includes a small picture with the lyrics on the back.
The Best of Folks… reads like a kind of life advice mantra about how to live a good life and be well regarded so as to avoid drawing evil into your life. The singer suggests through five verses and one repeated refrain that you “make peace with every breath”, don’t speak ill of people behind their backs, and revere your oldest friends among other things, and following this advice, generally “the best of folks will see the best in you,” which is a well known aphorism anyway. However, you don’t hear it sung too often, and not like this: in a spare, very pretty, yet matter of fact, kind of way. No great drama, just advice, sung to you directly, over the top of simple acoustic guitar arpeggios, and even simpler very spare keyboard part. It’s quite short, and one feels that one would not have minded if the song had gone on for ten minutes with little stories for verses to illustrate these lessons through fable and anecdote rather than abstract concepts. You can’t not enjoy this little ditty, even if it fades away and you go back to your life unable to put any of this great advice into immediate action.
Harbour Men… sung by Daniel Papien, he of the deep voice who sounds like a real cross between Johnny Cash and Robert Fisher (of Willard Grant Conspiracy) and because of this I’m naturally drawn to his words. Will Oldham joins later in the song with his own verse and provides a nice vocal contrast to Papier. “Harbour Men” from what I can tell seems to be a tale of sailors, young guys only stopping by for a short time, looking for a good time, and the “painted women” who service them, though things inevitably turn sour, as “it’s a given life sometimes gets harsh”. Someone, presumably the women, gets philosophical in the Oldham voice and laments that for all life’s ills, we’ll all be dead and gone in a hundred years from now. At song end, Papier sings “Well I just threw the money and run,” which is at odds with the printed lyrics which say, “I just took the money and ran.” Completely different meaning. These spare lines and clues suggest harbour men aren’t to be trusted. Perhaps. It’s another short song, but quite lovely, with pedal steel, and backing choir during the later part of the song.
And that’s it. Play both sides and you’re done in about six minutes. While the songs both have nice tunes, the packaging seems at odds. It takes about as long to unseal the 7” from its fancy sleeve as it does to play the thing. This came out six years ago, so I guess we won’t be hearing any more collaborations from this lot again.
alanbumstead 