Guest Spot is a recurring topic on Natetheworld. In it, I provide a guest author a story or video and they, in turn, provide their reaction. This month, we are featuring a long time friend of mine, Stephanie Jensen. Below, is the video which inspired her response.
Ben Harper KEXP Interview Review
“Call It What It Is”
The title track to Ben Harper’s new album is a song he never wants to sing again. If it were rendered unnecessary—if police would never be found guilty of murdering black men in the streets unarmed, innocent and compliant, this song would be fiction.
Call it what it is, call it what it is—murder.
Songwriting is Harper’s primary artistic outlet, and although this particular song is gorgeous and haunting, it drips with the blood of the guiltless dead and remains covered in the blankets of the walking terrified.
Gun control, mind control, self-control, we’ve dug ourselves a hole.
Call it what it is, call it what it is—murder.
Believing, like many in today’s society, that racism is one of the things that can erode our democracy the quickest, Harper wrote what is one of the greatest protest songs too many people haven’t yet heard.
“All That Has Grown”
Harper and his band, The Innocent Criminals, spent a decade apart. Each was still prolific musically and came back to each other as friends and brothers. He makes no secret that it was tough at first, and admits he was a huge part of dragging the group down and causing the breakup.
After everything, we put each other through.
When they reunited, they chose to write new music, partially because it was easier than learning the old songs, and partially to move forward. As he says in the interview, if you want to really know someone, have a fight with them. Split up with them for a while, and you’ll see their true character.
After the storm.
Whether “All That Has Grown” is about the band isn’t clear, but it’s certainly universally relatable.
Everything we remember is what we choose and it no longer matters to win or to lose.
This album was recorded in several sessions throughout one year, which was intentional. Harper’s explanation is fascinating—saying he wouldn’t have done that in his twenties. Yet this gives him a better perspective of what they were doing instead of what they thought they were doing. When you’re younger you can run through walls, but as he so vividly put it, you get sore bones that way.
“Deeper and Deeper”
Perhaps Ben Harper is the Ernest Hemingway of current singer-songwriters. And if I were the kind of writer to compare people to dead other-people, I would say precisely that. His lyrics are simple, but not easy. It’s his voice, the band and him that make the songs resonate. It’s possible that if I didn’t know he grew up in a musical family and recorded an album with his mom, I might respect him less. The song “Deeper and Deeper” would still take me back to a place I need to revisit occasionally.
Deeper and deeper until I drown.
(But I’ve been a lifeguard for most of my life. Why is this song making sense to me tonight? Probably because it’s the human condition, set to music. Such is the entire album.)
I try to run but you hold me down.
(How does Ben Harper know me so well? I’m only a few songs in. Are we dating now? Can we date now? Can we just get married actually? Will he write about me then? Because I don’t think I want that—I’m too private, and this guy has life figured OUT by track four.)
Hell or high water then you hold on tight.
(Solid advice. I didn’t think I needed advice, but this is concrete.)
“Goodbye to You”
I don’t know how to say goodbye to you.
All self-respecting musicians have a great break-up song. To have one as moving as “Goodbye to You” is rare. If I had to choose one thing I love most about Ben Harper as a person, it’s his humility. So the line “I don’t know how to say goodbye to you” is both honest and humble. Because truly, who does know? Where are the experts? When ending a relationship or a marriage or burying someone you loved, do you really know how to say goodbye? This isn’t a thing we’re taught. There’s not a correct technique. My method was to avoid it.
Shattered and chained to our past; battered and too proud to ask.
We can play music and stare at ceilings. We can drink ourselves into oblivion and cheat on each other. We can fight or refuse to fight. We can write or avoid writing because it hurts to see things on paper.
My options are plenty but my choices are few.
Or, we can find the album “Call It What It Is” by Ben Harper and remember that music always has answers, even if they make us cry. Even when nothing else does.
s.jensen