Dan Smith
(aka the frontman of the “talk music” project Listener) is a surprising success
story. The first time I saw him was at a
small café in a small Midwestern town. I
distinctly remember thinking that his music would never catch on. Three years and almost 40,000 Facebook fans
later, I’m delighted to be proven wrong.
After beginning his career in hip-hop, Listener seems to have discovered
his true strength in a roots/rock/folk/spoken word medium perfected in his
latest album Wooden Heart.
Literature
buffs will be interested to know that Wooden
Heart is inspired by The NeverendingStory by Michael Ende. It’s
inspiration may be a fantasy, but the album could not feel more earthy. Smith’s ability to evoke empathy is at its
strongest in “Seatbelt Hands” which tells the story of a person most of us
would simply dismiss as a “failure.” The
themes in “You Were a House on Fire” will be familiar to everyone who has
struggled to help a hurting friend: “Let’s not talk about the weather/ And
whether or not there’s really rain in the clouds/ Unless you want to know if I
feel the same as you/ It’s more measuring up than just wasting time/ But time
is not on our side, you’re burning/ Rain would only be a temporary fix/ And
there’s just no place right now for cute ironies like that anymore.” All of the
songs on Wooden Heart are so
emotionally heavy that if would feel
overdone, if not for Smith’s sometimes overwhelming sincerity. The album’s spirit is to deeply rooted in the
working class ethos to be postmodernist.
Perhaps the last lines of the last song capture its message best, “Save
up your hopes friends/ And send them to the corners of your end/ There is
something coming, and everything matters/ Guard your heart, and watch the wind.”
Listener is
much easier to understand when approached as poetry set to music.
