Amanda Takes Off...

I have been listening to the best musician you've never heard of since I was...15 or 16? Stuart Davis has amazing lyrics, songs that sound different from each other, and a sense of humor. (About five years ago he was promoting the succession of Minnesota; he wanted it to join Canada.)

He's got three CDs up at iTunes, and I hope he puts more up. I somehow lost possession of a bunch of his CDs in a breakup—I have no idea how, as they were truly my CDs—and I have no easy way of getting them here.

The songs that introduced Stuart to me were played on Radio K, a college radio station in Minnesota. (This was the same station that introduced me to Polara and Garmarna and a slew of other musicians that I still listen to today.)

He had two songs in heavy play in 1995 and 1996. My mother hated both of them. One of them, "Female Friend" is about a guy who constantly has non-platonic thoughts about his (female) friends. The other one was about a kid who wanted to be Jesus Christ in the Christmas play. He was only the understudy and he was planning on giving Actor Christ some food poisoning so he could play Jesus. (I don't think this one has been released on a CD.)

While I understand my mother's objections to those songs, she did find out that she really liked some of his stuff. He sings about politics (baking an explosive cake for a certain politician), racism (in his "Little White Town" he "never saw a single one acting racist"), spirituality (varying kinds), chemical dependency ("Only Changing Drugs") and what everyone sings about—love and sex.

"Atavistic Viking" on 1996's Nomen Est Numen is a haunting song about a man who taps into his Viking heritage. It's fabulously cathartic to sing (and fantasize) to this when I'm having a bad day.

And the planet hasn't seen such
horror in a thousand years
The bellicose screams of my ancestors
still ring in the Atavistic Viking

"World Learns English" on 1997's Kid Mystic is short and to the point. I often think about it when I'm studying Korean.

The children of Wales in formative years
can summon old Celtic with polyglot sneers
So kids, what's the translation—I mean how would you say
"My useless language is dying away?"

Study some numbers and we'll see whose dumb
to get into business you only need one

The world learns English to climb up a rung
if you want to be heard you speak in this tongue
The Tower of Babel is now in reverse
we're bringing together what God had dispersed

It's not really true to say cultures collide
some get erased, some spread out wide
Which brings us to you, and your obsolete ways
We might use your dead language to coin a cute phrase

But the key to your future is learning to blend
Comprehende, Katalaves, Verstehen Sie, friend?
The world learns English to climb up a rung
if you want to be heard you speak in this tongue
The Tower of Babel is now in reverse
we're bringing together what God had dispersed

Check him out. He's great.