With just a few lines in "Everybody Wants a Cookie," he shows how differently people behave even when they agree on something. Some of his more effective tunes are also the ones that seem the simplest, but these actually hold a subtle depth. By keeping his bluesy folk songs brief, Reeder can make his observations and then move on to the next one. "Maybe," for example, is the longest cut here, clocking in at 3:43. Reeder's songs, however, come off more like vignettes, or anecdotes, rather than Prine-like short stories. These lines exemplify what Reeder does best: teeter between darkly comic observations and more cosmic ones. This wonderfully quirky rumination of death features Reeder talking about various people he's known who have died (like Dieter who "you could call on the phone and he would tell you that he's not home" two weeks after his death) while also philosophizing about mortality ("maybe you'll come back some day as a king prawn/maybe angels come and take you away to heaven or the other way/but for down here it appears that when they're gone/they're gone"). Listen to "Maybe" here and it's easy to hear the shared sensibility. Both are crusty-voiced singers who pen dark-humored tales about the odd ways of man. It's not a surprise that Americana icon John Prine signed Dan Reeder to his Oh Boy label.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |