Articles

Jeffery Lewis is both a man and a legend. If I could practise making babies with anyone right now, it would be him (sorry Cassaraptor). While I should be doing other things (like packing for my weekend jollys) I’m instead lamenting that I will be missing him play at the Windmill in Brixton tomorrow night.

He manages to hold his audience suspended: there is never much talking at a Lewis show for fear of missing some gem of a rhyme or phrasing that has the ability to make an audience member smile while at the same time ripping out their still beating hearts and waving it in their faces.

Yeah, it seems like I’m talking a load of shit, but honest, he can pen a song about getting raped by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy on the L Train that isn’t analysing some violent homosexual act of aggression, but about contemplating the meaning of pursuing a career in indie rock and to analyse whether it is worth the time and expense to never be quite a household name. In a beautiful song of rhetorical questions, he makes his own conclusions while accepting that artists are pussies.

In the 7 minute long song called The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song, he meets a girl, misses his chance “if I was Leonard Cohen or some other song writing master, I’d know to first get the oral sex and write the song after” and sings in the hopes that somewhere she is doing the same thing about him.

Perhaps it is simple, but the best music always is. I like songs by boys about girls. I like lyric heavy songs. I like songs that surprise me with simple cleverness. On paper, Lewis’s songs look like nothing much, but the guitar heightens the loneliness in his voice. They are story songs. Whether he is comforting a girlfriend because of her bad day (Don’t Be Upset), comforting a friend who has a ‘Heavy Heart’, or telling the complete history of communisim, they are complete and leave the listener with a sense of hope and knowledge gained.

Jeffery Lewis is my favourite. He is more of a verb than a noun. Jeffery… I’d give up potatoes for him if he asked. That is how much I love him.


seen live
favourite
make babies with
antifolk
Jeffery Lewis
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song