Song Of The Day 02/03/2011: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness

Will Oldham had been releasing music for a while by the time this was released in 1999, under a variety of different names. This is the title track of his first album under the name by which he is now best known, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. The album as a whole is a stone-cold classic, with the first half being one of the strongest run of songs of the decade. 'A Minor Place' and 'Nomadic Revelry', both fantastic songs in their own right, seem to be building up to an emotional climax, gradually gathering pace, until track 3 hits, when the volume completely drops off, any non-completely essential sound stops completely (an effect he also performs live). Oldham starts off by listing things he likes about life, but states that, even despite all these things, he can't help but see a 'darkness', which he can't save himself from. In the final chorus, he resigns himself to the fact he will probably always feel the same way, but it feels like he's putting this up as a good thing, rather than bad.

Even Johnny Cash's deathly voice couldn't really do the song justice, with his gravelly version, released about a decade ago on 'American III', coming across to me as fairly flippant, not really getting to the heart of the song. When a song can sound more sincere than even Johnny Cash in his own elderly darkness can manage, you know Will Oldham has put absolutely everything into it, and here he has written one of the best downbeat songs I've ever heard. It doesn't sound especially morbid, and while the lyrics themselves are bleak, they aren't off-the-scale - there is definitely a way of looking at the song's basic sentiment 'I'll always be depressed, and need my friends to help me through it' in a positive light, despite the sentiments expressed being, well, depressing. Every single time I listen to this song I come away thinking about it from a different viewpoint - in fact, it's one of those rare songs that you can't really recover from the mental toll of listening to, up there in the pantheon with 'Oh Comely' and 'Heroin'.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness

Album Review: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware

[Drag City, 2009]

The brooding face of a middle-aged man stares out from the cover of Beware. Will Oldham, under his many monikers, has been producing albums of almost uniform quality since the early 90s, with the odd flash of utter greatness (I See a Darkness, his 1999 release, is a shoo-in to be in the top 5 albums of that decade). However, his previous album Lie Down in the Light was a disappointment, without being genuinely bad. Lazy songwriting and a distinct lack of decent tunes, coupled with a marked turn towards that much-maligned genre, country, compromised Will Oldham’s undisputed talents. It also featured one of the worst album covers ever – it appeared to have been scrawled by a pretentious toddler. Beware was Oldham’s biggest album in a very long time, with a great deal of press coverage, and he had to make amends.

He has done, to a certain extent. The country flavours are still very much present, although not as stark and unwelcome in the context of much better-written songs. Oldham’s lyrics are yet to return to their mid-90s peak, but they are still very serviceable, with songs that seem to be trying to impart advice to his listeners, a natural progression for an aging songwriter. He seems to be recognising that he is now one of the ‘wise old men’ of the American indie scene, despite the fact he is still in his 30s. Beware is fairly pleasant, but too many of the songs just drift by without any moments of real interest. Each song seems to be built round a single idea, relying on far too much improvisation for a writer of Oldham’s calibre. He should think about cutting down his amazing productivity and start putting genuine work into his songs, and then he might come up with more albums that fulfil his potential to be one of the best songwriters around.