Have you ever looked at a small island within a large lake? Have you gathered with a couple of friends and decided that you can probably swim out to that island, as it isn’t all that far away? Have you started swimming in the frigid, murky water of that New Hampshire lake until your arms throbbed and your legs started to tingle, all the while the island sat upon the horizon slowly enlarging itself with every stroke? Then it suddenly sets in that the island is four miles off the shore and you are not nearly the accomplished swimmer you thought. This is quite the enlightening realization. If you and all your friends realize it at once, it is a great feeling of mutual hubris which will swallow all sorts of shame and bubble up a tiny bit of momentary invincibility until the ideas of drowning returns. As a group, you turn around and return back to shore the whole time joking about how YOU were still fit to go forward to the island, but your friends wussed out. This is the sort of moment I thought of when listening to Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea.

Since I first heard the Silver Jews with the misperception that it was a Pavement side project, I haven’t stopped smiling from the slanted poetry and sweet, simple song structures. That was around seven or eight years ago, and David Berman has kept up with his unspoiled perceptions of human nature. With this new album, Berman climbs further up the hierarchy of folky-fresh poets who paint the world in a tangerine light.

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea could be read to children sitting cross-legged in a circle atop carpet squares. It could be turned into a black and white movie and played at the nickel cinemas during times long ago. It could be transformed into a giant potluck dinner somewhere on a farm in maybe Idaho or Northern California where everyone drinks homemade wine and lights the last bit of wick on centimeter-tall candlesticks. A dinner where the neighbor that was invited only out of uneasy politeness shows up with a giant pile of figs which he grew in his backyard. A dinner where, afterwards, everyone strips down to their underpants and stomps around in the kiddy pool splashing stale rain water all over the lowlands while the young children aren’t sure if they should be embarrassed or proud of their naked parents. You know the kind of record I’m talking about?

Berman seems to have the wisdom of a train-hopping hobo you may bump into while spending a night in a jail cell after drinking a dozen whiskeys and tossing your date into oncoming traffic. He sings of a lifestyle filled with backwoods romance, seafaring parties, delicious jail cells, neglected jukeboxes, and all sorts of modest magic. If the Silver Jew’s albums are the biography of this life, then the made for TV movie would be shown on Nickelodeon after an episode of Crazy Pets.

I usually ignore lyrics for the most part when enjoying an album. I’ll get a few lines from the chorus stuck in my head, but pretty much tune out the actual poetry of the tune, instead concentrating on melodies or the interaction of the instruments. I’m not sure why I do it, or even how to explain exactly what I enjoy from a song, all I know is, in my book, lyrics are usually tertiary to my enjoyment of a good song. Which makes it weird that I find myself so focused on Berman’s hilarious lyrical world. Fabled dream worlds are created so vividly I can’t help but tilt my head and concentrate a bit more.

The latest offering in Berman’s catalog expands slightly, composition-wise, to some of the more stripped down Silver Jews albums, but still keeps the same blueprint. Berman’s poetry, minimal guitar chords, and pocketful of nickels while the jukebox only takes dimes. So, next time you have the chance, dive off the dock and brave the chilling waters with a few friends that need sobering up. By the time you get back, you may be hungry and you may have a good idea of what Berman is singing about.

Drag City Records
Crawdaddy’s Silver Jews interview