Jonathan Richman’s not looking back, so why should we? There’s no reason to discuss his colorful musical past and his place in the New Wave canon. Instead, he’s looking forward and finds the future is frozen. Things don’t change; they just change form, like water becoming ice, which then becomes vapor. He’s not the first to notice this. Except Richman throws in a monkey wrench. He knows we all die. That’s where the frozen comes in.
That demands we need to pay attention to the present. In songs like “But We Might Try Weird Stuff”, “The Dog Star”, and “The Wavelet”, the cloying singer-songwriter uses pop melodies to express hope even as he sings about shame and angst (i.e., “that day in the dark”). The music lets the listener know that all is not lost, even in death. He’s a happy boy. Just listen to him strum that guitar!
He’s right. As long as we can live and breathe, anything is possible. Let’s dance! His acoustic version of the Bee Gees‘ big disco hit “Night Fever” has us all wanting the night to last. When he starts singing the lyrics in a faux French accent, one can’t help but break out into a smile.
Richman is ably assisted by his longtime drummer Tommy Larkins and keyboardist Jerry Harrison, who was in Richman’s original band, the Modern Lovers, before joining up with Talking Heads. They purposely and deceptively play like amateurs to express a kind of child-like innocence. One can imagine the trio at a party picking up stray instruments and jamming together unrehearsed.
That’s true of the lyrics as well, which seem extemporaneous and made up on the spot. What initially may seem superficial frequently turns into something more profound. The Spanish “Se Va Pa’volver” serves as a good example. The title translates as “he’s leaving to return”. My language skills aren’t proficient enough to fully translate the song, but the apparent theme fits in with the rest of the material. We may all die, become frozen, but we never really die. Everything changes but change.
He finds the message of the Biblical story of David and Goliath to be a parable of the underdog. This gives us all hope. Even when the odds are against one, one can succeed by being true to oneself. Richman builds the suspense through playing a “Philistine solo” on guitar before having everyone chime in to celebrate David’s victory. The contemporary definition of the word philistine is that of a person who is hostile to culture. The song’s latent meaning suggests that music can conquer even the biggest foe. In a world indifferent to art, it will survive nonetheless, even after the death of the artist.
Only Frozen Sky Anyway begins with “I Was Just a Piece of Frozen Sky Anyway”, where Jonathan Richman declares that “when I make my transition, I want everyone to know I only changed position / When I make my change, I want everyone to know it’s not a big change.” The transition from life to whatever happens next is no big deal. We are all part of the cosmos. Some things we may never do again, but so what? In the long run, it does not matter. The album ends with a 56-second quiet coda that declares “I am the sky”. So are we, he instructs. There’s no reason to be sad. That’s life.