A playlist curated in honour of David Berman
With his nonchalant baritone vocal, David Berman brought a sedate yet creatively virtuous edge to post-punk era songwriting in the late 1980s and ’90s. When he first formed Silver Jews, his synonymous band, in 1989, future Pavement icons Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich joined his line-up to enrich a new direction for East Coast indie rock.
Like many musicians of his individualist ilk, Berman avoided specific genre titles in an age of such diversity in rock ‘n’ roll. “Punk rock died when the first kid said ‘Punk’s not dead,'” he sang in ‘Tennessee’, suggesting that he felt each new wave dies the minute it is recognised as such. At that moment, it transforms into something else: a chain of derivative off-shoots and copyists.
As he developed Silver Jews through the 1990s, Berman danced impressively on the fine line between radio appeal and obscure originality. His sound was typified by a stoner-rock looseness and his distinctive voice. Otherwise, his approach was somewhat eclectic, ranging from Americana and country rock to noise rock and lo-fi.
Berman’s music may not have turned as many heads as Pavement, but Silver Jews accumulated a strong cult following that spread far beyond the US borders. His knack for storytelling in his lyrics seemed to resonate with anyone who gave his music a chance to consume them. Enduring hits like ‘Random Rules’ and ‘Wild Kindness’ expose the songwriter’s charm and honesty while betraying a Berman deep within who was not so aloof as the vocals may let on.
During his time as Silver Jews and later working under the Purple Mountains moniker, Berman candidly reflected on his innermost thoughts and life experiences. “I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men’s room walls / Maybe I’ve crossed the wrong rivers and walked down all the wrong halls,” he sang in the second verse of ‘Random Rules’. The song is evidently about the breakdown of a relationship, yet his personal struggles are usually centred on his long-lived struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction.
In 2004, Berman entered rehab following a nadir the previous year, during which he attempted suicide. He managed to turn his life around for several years, but success came only in waves of sobriety and relapse. Tragically, he succumbed to his struggle with depression on August 7th, 2019.
Despite attempts at intervention from his close friends and family, such a demise seemed inescapable for the troubled singer-songwriter. “There were probably 100 nights over the last ten years where I was sure I wouldn’t make it to the morning,” he said during a June 2019 interview with Exclaim!
In July, just a month before his death, Berman debuted his new Purple Mountains project with an eponymous debut album. The album was fraught with melancholy and allusions to the writer’s suicidal considerations and, sadly, near-unanimous critical acclaim could do little to numb the pain.
In July 2019, Tidal created several playlists to celebrate the Purple Mountains debut. The streamer asked James Toth, Ryan Davis, J Mascis, Kurt Vile and Bobby Bare to name their favourite songs created by Berman. Following the artist’s death a month later, these playlists live on as a touching tribute.
A playlist in honour of David Berman:
James Toth:
- ‘Slow Education’
- ‘Punks In The Beerlight’
- ‘How to Rent a Room’
- ‘I’m Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You’
- ‘Sleeping Is The Only Love’
- ‘Pet Politics’
- ‘Advice To The Graduate’
- ‘Suffering Jukebox’
- ‘Strange Victory, Strange Defeat’
- ‘Dallas’
Ryan Davis:
- ‘Secret Knowledge of Back Roads’
- ‘Famous Eyes’
- ‘Trains Across The Sea’
- ‘Rebel Jew’
- ‘How to Rent a Room’
- ‘Dallas’
- ‘Inside the Golden Days of Missing You’
- ‘Albemarle Station’
- ‘Random Rules’
- ‘The Wild Kindness’
- ‘I’m Gonna Love The Hell Out Of You’
- ‘Slow Education’
- ‘Room Games and Diamond Rain’
- ‘Death of an Heir of Sorrows’
- ‘Punks In The Beerlight’
- ‘K-Hole’
- ‘I’m Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You’
- ‘Sleeping Is The Only Love’
- ‘Strange Victory, Strange Defeat’
- ‘We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing’
J Mascis:
- ‘Advice To The Graduate’
- ‘Trains Across The Sea’
- ‘Rebel Jew’
- ‘Tide To The Oceans’
- ‘How to Rent a Room’
- ‘Pet Politics’
- ‘Black and Brown Blues’
- ‘The Frontier Index’
- ‘Sleeping Is The Only Love’
- ‘Secret Knowledge of Back Roads’
Kurt Vile:
- ‘Famous Eyes’
- ‘Introduction II’
- ‘Trains Across The Sea’
- ‘New Orleans’
- ‘Pet Politics’
- ‘Dallas’
- ‘Random Rules’
- ‘Smith & Jones Forever’
- ‘Night Society’
- ‘Federal Dust’
- ‘People’
- ‘Send in the Clouds’
- ‘Like like the the the Death’
- ‘Buckingham Rabbit’
- ‘Honk If You’re Lonely’
- ‘The Wild Kindness’
- ‘Slow Education’
- ‘Horseleg Swastikas’
- ‘Tennessee’
- ‘Punks In The Beerlight’
- ‘Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed’
- ‘Open Field’
- ‘Suffering Jukebox’
- ‘San Francisco B.C.’
- ‘Candy Jail’
- ‘We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing’
- ‘Living Waters’
- ‘Rebel Jew’
- ‘The Silver Pageant’
- ‘Secret Knowledge of Back Roads’
- ‘I Love the Rights’
- ‘Bar Scene From Star Wars’
- ‘Pretty Eyes’
- ‘Death of an Heir of Sorrows’
Bobby Bare:
- ‘Open Field’
- ‘San Francisco B.C.’
- ‘Party Barge’
- ‘Trains Across The Sea’
- ‘Tide To The Oceans’
- ‘Random Rules’
- ‘Night Society’
- ‘Blue Arrangements’
- ‘The Wild Kindness’
- ‘Slow Education’
- ‘Room Games and Diamond Rain’
- ‘I Remember Me’
- ‘Horseleg Swastikas’
- ‘Tennessee’
- ‘Death of an Heir of Sorrows’
- ‘Punks In The Beerlight’
- ‘Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed’
- ‘I’m Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You”
- ‘The Poor, The Fair And The Good’
- ‘Suffering Jukebox’
- ‘My Pillow Is The Threshold’
- ‘Open Field’
