Fat Ninja

At the behest of my good friend Seth I gave a listen to singer/song-writer Ray LaMontagne a few weeks back. Since then, I just can’t get enough of this guy’s music. He’s such a far cry from the Top 20, bubblegum music that permeates the airwaves. I mean, it’s just so common for studios to run vocals and everything else through filters and effects these days that the final product that ends up in your hands is far removed from what the artists actually put down. But LaMontagne breaks from the convention of over-producing music. From a musical perspective, his sound is just so purely organic and unrefined.

His soft-spoken, slightly gravelly crooning and languid guitar strumming just float over subdued rhythms. The result is an intimate experience, with very little distraction occurring in the dialogue between him and his audience. At times he is light and lively, particularly in a track like Three More Days. However, on songs like Be Here Now he takes on a beautifully haunting quality that can send chills through you.

While LaMontagne’s sound comes off as simplistic, it really belies a very heavy complexity. As a songwriter he manages to really reach into my spirit and pull at the quiet solitude that can so often define the human condition. On Empty, for example, his ambling guitar and rasping falcetto come together to give life to some of the best lyrics I’ve ever read:

She lifts her skirt up to her knees,
Walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing.
I never learned to count my blessings,
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters.

Walk on down the hill
Through grass grown tall and brown, and still
It’s hard somehow to let go of my pain.
On past the busted back
Of that old and rusted Cadillac
That sinks into this field, collecting rain.

Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

And of these cutthroat, busted sunsets,
These cold and damp white mornings, I have grown weary.
If, through my cracked and dusty dimestore lips,
I spoke these words out loud, would no one hear me?

Lay your blouse across the chair,
Let fall the flowers from your hair
And kiss me with that country mouth so plain.
Outside the rain is tapping on the leaves.
To me, it sounds like they’re applauding us,
The quiet love we make.

Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

Well, I looked my demons in the eyes,
Laid bare my chest said, “Do your best and destroy me.
See, I’ve been to hell and back so many times
I must admit, you kinda bore me.”

There’s a lot of things that can kill a man,
There’s a lot of ways to die.
Yes, and some already dead that all walk beside me.
There’s a lot of things I don’t understand;
Why so many people lie.
But, it’s the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.

Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged

His lyrics are just so concrete and tangible, featuring incredible poetics that can, at times, almost move me to tears. Each line just paints such a vivid picture within my mind’s eye. But it’s really the way that the lyrics and performance come together to establish a sense of aching longing that I love so much. All in all, it’s just a fantastic song from start to finish.

I have been meaning to post on the subject of Ray LaMontagne for a while now, and as I close out I’m realizing that I’m almost at a loss for words. His music moves me so much that it’s a struggle to even define and describe the effects that it has on me. Before I go, I just wanted to thank Seth for turning me on to Ray LaMontagne’s stuff. Also, you really need to check out Ray’s version of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy:

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