Whatever and Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five (Whatever And Ever Amen - Ben Folds Five)

Member Name: Lichfield1979

Product:	Whatever And Ever Amen - Ben Folds Five
Date:	06/09/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All the songs are good.

Disadvantages: n/a

Whatever and Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five (1997)

Ben Folds: Piano
Robert Sledge: Bass
Darren Jessee: Drums

If the 1990s produced a better power-pop record than this one I'd love to hear it.

One - One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces

The first track takes the template of the first record - with fuzzy bass and greedy piano arpeggios where other bands would employ guitars - and raises the bar to truly giddying heights. It's got a great beat and a surfeit of melody and at times the tempo dazzles but what impresses most is the focused intensity that's brought to such a distinctive sound. Folds crams more hooks into one song than some bands can think of for their whole album. To cap it off, the lyrics are hilarious. "September '75 I was 47 inches high," sings Folds, as he sticks up for bullied underdogs everywhere with fiery vigour as he fantasizes of exacting revenge now he's in the papers and on TV. "You know who I am, I'm your nightmare little man." Of course he's joking and knows full well holding grudges doesn't do any good, but the images are a riot any way. As if the music wasn't already adventurous enough, the song ends with a short pastiche of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Two - Fair

And we're back into Todd Rundgren or Brian Wilson territory as Folds uncoils a mature sounding song with an ambitious sweep and the confidence to switch between musical styles seamlessly. The harmonies are golden, the drumming is tight, and by turns the piano playing has a touching elegance and an inspired rhythmic momentum. There's a bridge halfway through that could form the backbone of a song on its own but Folds only needs it for thirty seconds. The lyrics suggest "all is fair in love" but it's like getting hit by a car and "he was thrown head over heels into the traffic coming on". He writes letters and has dreams but never figures out if she's forgiven him despite "all this breathing in never breathing out." At the end the piano sparkles playfully before stepping out entirely leaving the bass to repeat itself alone like a heartbeat.

Three - Brick

This stunning sad piano ballad is one of the centrepieces of the record. The piano contemplates in constant slow circles and the bass is rich and deep and springy, prodding tentatively forward like the precession of a hospital clock. It's a cold dawn at Christmas and the guy in the song is alone as his girlfriend recovers from an abortion. He buys some flowers and sells some gifts and tries to figure out how he feels. "She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly". After some elegiac piano chords, full of fragile textures, the drums and bass begin to march the time frame on a bit with tight precision. "As weeks went by / it showed that she was not fine / They told me son it's time to tell the truth / She broke down and I broke down / Cause I was tired of lying." There was a music video that got heavy rotation on MTV and this may be the band's best-known song. Producer Caleb Southern unobtrusively fills out the sound with a Hammond organ.

Four - Song For The Dumped

A more raucous and ramshackle affair with angry lyrics and a growling bass line. There's a hint of menace in the piano chords as he says "give me my money back" to a girl who has just dumped him on her front-porch after he paid for dinner. It's petty and spiteful and even a bit misogynistic but sometimes people are.

Five - Selfless, Cold and Composed

By comparison to Song For The Dumped, this song is selfless, cold and composed - which is the accusation he levels at a girl with whom he is disgruntled for smiling at him politely "like a bank teller blankly telling" him what he's supposed to want to hear. He finds her demeanour to be all too easy and doesn't feel that it means anything to "remain selfless, cold and composed" because in some circumstances being nice is not a favour. Anybody looking to criticise the attitude of the last song needs to figure out what they make of this one first because they are two sides of the same coin that chooses our reaction when a relationship goes wrong. The musical arrangements are lush and violins, viola and cello join the restaurant style piano as bass and drums wear neat suits and keep to traditional manners. It's a great composition masterfully played with plenty of swelling, swirling feeling, constrained by the bounds of social games and rules.

Six - Kate

Lennon and McCartney loom large in this perfectly crafted pop song. Bass and piano lay down a deceptively muddled rhythm to underpin everything but it's all about the melodies and vocal arrangements until the riffs start to unfurl with abandon. Apparently Kate never gets wet and when she smiles there's a rainbow and squirrels gather round. Which sounds a bit too good to be true for somebody who smokes pot and wears the same clothes every day, but never the less, "she speaks, and she breathes. I wanna be Kate." The song is three sumptuous minutes of uncluttered sunshine.

Seven - Smoke

The plaintive opening motif is played on an accordion and it recurs as if to signify the sadness of the passage of time. The lyrics use the metaphor of life being the pages of a book becoming unglued and burning on the fire as memories and feelings drift and float like smoke. We can pretend it never happened but secrets "travel in the air you can smell them when they burn" even if the past is dead. The song is about the end of a relationship and all the emotional landmarks long gone but the music infers older historical landscapes.

Eight - Cigarette

A reverie about a husband who cared for his terminally sick wife until her cigarette burnt down their house as they slept. For a minute and a half the piano is a ballet of falling ash like snow in the dark.

Nine - Steven's Last Night In Town

The band is joined by trumpet, clarinet and violin for this lively tale about a friend who comes to visit and then just won't leave. The drums strike up enthusiastic rhythms and the rest of the orchestration cavorts in wildly sinuous flourishes. "Everyone knows now that every night now will be Steven's last night in town." At one point a telephone rings in the background.

Ten - Battle Of Who Could Care Less

So this slacker guy thinks it's cool to be bored and aloof and alone and spends his days scoring weed and watching Rockford Files, although there are some things he'd change about Rockford Files if it were up to him, which it should be. The singer knows it's wrong to want to be like that, but kind of idolises him: "Do you never rest fighting the battle of who could care less? / Unearned unhappiness / You're my hero I confess." The backing vocals soar off in dreamy detachment as the piano bounces and the rubber bass rocks out some big riffs. Contains the line "Whatever and ever, amen" after which the album is named, and was the lead single, followed later by Kate and Brick.

Eleven - Missing The War

A ballad that starts out sleepy then gets a bit more robust and dramatic as the piano becomes louder and the vocal harmonies get more explorative and the bass and drums join in. Missing the war is a metaphor for not getting to follow dreams because of a relationship he's not cut out for, but knows he won't leave. So he works a tough job at nights to make ends meet, "till beads of sunlight hit me in the morning", and misses out on the best of the relationship also. He wants to leave to go and fight, but he can't, so he drives home every day, "pissed and beaten," to find "clothes all strewn around the bedroom floor" and his girlfriend "sleeping like a baby". He tells himself it's no big deal and this is what happens to people, but wonders why he's got "so much time so little to say."

Twelve - Evaporated

The record ends with this cathartic song about numbness and loss. "I poured my heart out. It evaporated." Poignant piano is complimented by cello and strings. The singer says what we remember and what we forget might be random, but we mustn't let what's important get "left along the way for being too pent up and proud." A lot of the lyrics are elliptical and personal but they appear to be about his father. It's a beautiful way to finish.

Summary: An exceptional record from the late 1990s