Lyrically Speaking: unravelling ‘Random Rules’ by Silver Jews
There are few opening lines quite as affecting as the first verse of ‘Random Rules’ by Silver Jews. “In 1984,” David Berman sings, “I was hospitalised for approaching perfection.” It’s the kind of opening lyric that stops you in your tracks, striking in its simultaneous simplicity and impenetrable intention. What follows is a string of sentences that build upon that feeling, laying out Berman’s worldview for us in a series of tiny painted portraits interspersed with random romanticisms.
A poet first and foremost, the Silver Jews frontman always devoted more time to his lyrics than his accompanying instrumentals, poring over words, stringing and re-stringing sentences together for as long as they required. It’s a process that almost seems oxymoronic on ‘Random Rules’, which ruminates on the randomness of the universe, the lack of control we have over it all, and how depression and romance find their place within that ideology.
The meaning of those opening words has been endlessly debated and deliberated. What kind of perfection was a 17-year-old Berman approaching in 1984? The timing works out for his words to implicate adulthood, but it’s an interpretation that doesn’t seem entirely congruent with the context. Hospitalisation – and correction, used in the line that follows – hints at something more worthy of concern. Perhaps Berman’s belief that he was approaching perfection was misguided by mental illness, or it could be that his idea of perfection was death.
Berman allows us no explanation in the lines that follow as he moves along to drawl the nonsensical, “Broken and smoking where the infrared deer plunge in the digital snake.” The songwriter isn’t really saying anything as he rambles about digital snakes and infrared deer, but the words hit the ear just right nonetheless. It’s a line that upholds the song’s titular argument, proving that random rules even in songwriting.
His next line is a little easier to dissect but still uncomfortable to digest. “I tell you,” he declares, “they make it so you can’t shake hands when they make your hands shake.” The line seems to chart the loss of human connection amidst mental illness. As your hands begin to shake from anxiety or perhaps from medication, it’s much more difficult to execute a firm hand-shake to maintain intentional and steady relationships with those you love.
Collecting his thoughts, Berman surmises it all in a refrain. “I know you like to line dance,” he sings, “everything so democratic and cool, but baby, there’s no guidance when random rules.” An attempt to choreograph your life as stringently as one would choreograph a line dance is a futile endeavour. No matter how considered your moves are, life is always ready to trip you up.
The refrain also introduces Berman’s continued addresses to another person who he lovingly terms “baby.” As he sprinkles these comfy romanticisms throughout the song – calling them “honey” and referring to a time they used to share a bed – they seem like attempts to woo someone he was once involved with. Closer to a country love song than a mediation on the randomness of life, they seem misplaced, but they only serve that idea further. When random rules, why not give in to those little moments of romance?
Berman’s words in the second voice flit between soft speech to a former lover and those striking admissions from earlier in the song. He admits that he borrows lyrics and poetry from men’s room walls and acknowledges that he’s traversed the wrong rivers and the wrong halls but maintains that none of that negates the love they once shared. “But nothing can change the fact that we used to share a bed,” he declares in an aching line, “And that’s why it scared me so when you turned to me and said…”
The songwriter allows us a brief response from the subject of the song, who sees someone they used to know in Berman. “Yeah, you look like someone who up and left me low,” he sings in their voice. It’s full of longing and gentle resentment all at once, but Berman’s rebuttal comes only in the form of random rulings. After returning to the futility of line dancing, he affords his final verse to a painter and a protagonist called Steve, perhaps alluding to bandmate Stephen Malkmus.
Now inquiring about the gloomy colour of the roads, Berman is met with the answer, “Steve, it’s because people leave, and no highway will bring them back.” A random thought about one of the mundanities of our man-made world finds its way into Berman’s relationship, as he promises not to linger if he’s unwanted. “But before I go, I gotta ask you, dear, about the tan line on your ring finger,” he stipulates, returning to feelings of love, longing and loss.
By the end of the song, Berman has completely given in to randomness, leaning into romance in the face of it. “No one should have two lives,” he declares, and it’s unclear whether he’s talking about himself, about his mistakes, or about their relationship. If it’s the latter, he quickly throws that idea out of the window, concluding with the words, “Honey, we’ve got two lives to give tonight.”
‘Random Rules’ has been endlessly quoted for its opening line, but the sprawling collage of romance and randomness that follows is just as worthy of dissection and admiration. Struggling to place depression and love amidst a world that cares about neither, Berman crafted one of the most intimately impenetrably songs of all time.
