WARMER MIXTAPES #784 | by Dan Scheuerman of Deleted Scenes
Club Soda Unbridled: A Mix of Love songs by the Silver Jews.
1. Silver Jews | Black And Brown Blues
The evolution of David Berman’s Songwriting traces the story of a lost man found by Love, and documents its changes over many years and phases of Life. This is Berman’s first major Love song. At the heart of a simple metaphor about picking out shoes stirs a kind of delicious ambivalence. You can feel the nerves of early Love, and the moment when you find yourself asking, Am I really going to give myself to this?... Of course, by the time you find the words for the question, it’s too late.
2. Silver Jews | Room Games And Diamond Rain
After working with Steve Malkmus on the bro-centric American Water, Bright Flight finds Berman with a new Musical partner, muse, and future wife, Cassie Marrett. In this song, a lover warns of Dark tendencies, airing all the red flags, and doing the due diligence routine as the relationship is beginning to get serious.
3. Silver Jews | I Remember Me
This story-song contains some of my favorite falling-in-Love imagery ever— He almost walked into a wall when he sees her for the first time, and then later they slow dance so the needle wouldn’t skip. One of the most impressive things about these early Silver Jews songs is the sense of a Real Physical World within each song. This one most of all.
4. Silver Jews | Let's Not And Say We Did
The Gang Vocal and double-time tempo of this song captures the wreckless joy of two lovers taking on the World and finding the fiercest way to live.
5. Silver Jews | Tennessee
After falling in Love and running around the woods together in the previous song, Tennessee finds Berman proposing Marriage and taking his bride to start a life in Nashville. The tone is triumphant and urgent, like a law-abiding version of the couple in Badlands.
6. Silver Jews | Punks In The Beerlight
A few years, a million beers, and one suicide attempt later, the light has changed a bit on Tanglewood Numbers, but the Love is still to-the-max. These songs fulfill the promise of hard days to come on Room Games And Diamond Rain.
7. Silver Jews | Sleeping Is The Only Love
Oddly juxtaposing the story of a violent home invasion and murder against images of boxes of candy and foot massages, this song has the vibe of a couple huddling in Domestic Comfort against a harsh World. It seems almost too tired to give up.
8. Silver Jews | How Can I Love You If You Won’t Lie Down
Another song of Simplicity and Submission. The mania of Let’s Not And Say We Did has faded, and more sturdy bonds of Affection and Caring have taken its place. Fast Cars, fine ass, these things will pass. But there’s dad in his bike shorts trying to get fresh with mom as the kids make puke faces.
9. Silver Jews | The Poor, The Fair And The Good
Gaining back some of the old confidence of Tennessee, this song offers a sort of manifesto for mature lovers: We were built to consider the unmanifested, and make of Love an immaculate place.
10. Silver Jews | We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing
There’s a retiring mood to this, the last Silver Jews Love song. It would make a good first dance at someone’s second marriage: casual, worn out, and happy to simply enjoy quiet company. The Geriatric end of a remarkably complete Silver Jews Love narrative told over four of their albums.
