‘Nights That Won’t Happen’: David Berman’s most heartbreaking masterpiece
Throughout his time with the indie group Silver Jews, David Berman was always regarded as one of rock music’s greatest bards. From songs such as ‘Trains Across the Sea’ and its heartbreaking depiction of substance abuse (“In 27 years, I’ve drunk 50,000 beers, and they just wash against me like the sea into a pier”) to ‘Random Rules’ with its darkly funny but self-deprecating opening line (“In 1984, I was hospitalised for approaching perfection”), the songwriter always had a wonderful turn of phrase up his sleeve, no matter how morbid the subject matter might have been.
Silver Jews were never mainstream big, though they achieved cult status and legions of admirers for good reason, and their influence can’t be underestimated as their work continues to have a legacy. However, their troubled frontman Berman decided to pull the plug on the band in 2008 before retiring from music altogether for over ten years. Years of trouble with addiction and multiple attempts on his own life had impacted his well-being significantly, and he would spend these years away from music, living a reclusive lifestyle.
In 2019, Berman shocked fans by returning with a new project, Purple Mountains, and upon its release, his sole self-titled album under this name was received as another masterpiece and a welcome return for a sorely missed artist. The celebration of his return was sadly shortlived, as Berman would take his own life just three months after the release of the record, and most hauntingly, the signs were all over his final work.
The record was never a comfortable listen, but that wasn’t atypical of Berman’s work. The loneliness and despair heard on songs like ‘All My Happiness Is Gone’ and ‘Maybe I’m The Only One For Me’ is crushing, but neither of these live up to the utter heartbreak on “Nights That Won’t Happen’, which stands out as perhaps his most emotionally raw song.
Opening with the line, “The dead know what they’re doing when they leave this world behind”, Berman immediately sets the tone for the song and underlines the state of mind he was in when writing it. While he was never a particularly gifted vocalist, there’s a noticeable shakiness in his voice when he delivers this devastating lyric over the top of a slow-moving ballad.
There are further lines that highlight the anguish and the themes of loss, with “When the dying’s finally done and the suffering subsides, all the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind” being one of the hardest lines to stomach on the track. Here, he’s highlighting how, after someone’s death, the friends and family are the ones who experience more pain, but it’s said in such an emotionally weighty and poetic way that it unsettles the listener when it arrives and is later repeated for emphasis.
It’s strange that on an album so full of despair, so many of the songs sound upbeat in their mood, yet when digging deeper, there’s little to find other than pain. It’s most noticeable on ‘Nights That Won’t Happen’, though, as it sounds miserable from the start and doesn’t gloss over its sadness with a cheerful facade. It’s a harrowing final statement from an artist who had so much wisdom to share with the world yet struggled to ever feel at peace in the world.
