33 rebellions per minute
"Life might be short but ideas can be endless; how many mushrooms did it take?"
1996
Cindy Lee Berryhill, STRAIGHT OUTTA MARYSVILLE
Since Cindy is one of those rare artists I've honored by buying all her albums in order from the beginning, the following
declaration is speculative, but: this, her 4th, is probably the album of hers to start with. Perhaps more to the point,
MARYSVILLE is the only CD of hers, one of the only CD's by anybody, in my current possession (a little dispute with the
moving company, something about how no I did _not_ promise them $1939.20 to move me eighty miles; the situation is
being resolved with the kind help of a Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation employee), and I feel like reviewing her now.
Anyway, it is her most representative work, the one where her beatnik/Dylan and Brian Wilson strands come fully together,
along with her fullest dose yet of self-indulgence.
I don't know why I originally bought her WHO'S GONNA SAVE THE WORLD debut, given that I'd never heard of
her, she hadn't bothered finding a cool band name, and her title had more potential to be awful than to be clever, but my
suspicion is that the phrase "Dang, she looks _good_ in that halter top" may have run through my mind. And Mariah Carey
looks even better, so I assure you I don't make a custom of this line of reasoning. But the odd thing is I think it turned out to
be relevant to her musical persona. Cindy Lee strikes me as someone who--- being smart and funny and charming and
empathic and, as helpful as those other adjectives put together, pretty--- learned early on that anything she says will be treated
with interest and respect, regardless of whether her stories leave out useful details, or wander among topics, or forget they
were heading towards some point or other. By MARYSVILLE I'm even wondering if she's been listening to too much Tori
Amos: "She said to the back of her handkerchief: 'Picasso's in the living room playing with the baby boom hand'" does
_not_ get clearer in the context of a song sung to "Dai-ai, Daisy dear" and titled "The Virtues Of Being Apricot". You enjoy
the skittering cello, and the way Cindy seems to hit the high notes by roughly grabbing the lower ones and yanking 'em up
the scale, and you accept the lyrics, or not. At worst, you can wait for the next track, the lucid slow-waltz "Unwritten Love
Song" (bass, cello, metallophone, croon), which she co-wrote with her husband Paul Williams. Then comes "Just Like Me",
with a cello and her agile acoustic-guitar strums (she's no Ani DiFranco, but she's good) and a lovely chorus, where she
passes on observations of daily-life minidramas she witnesses at fast-food stops, explaining "It seems just like me, to get all
caught up in things". One song later she's gone all folky and is singing verses from the perspective of a silicon-based
life-form. I, of course, think that's totally cool, just like the odd tale of Martians or something that she sneaks into a jazzy,
vibes-driven cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch". From Sci-Fi to fantasy, "Elvis Of Marysville" (dual cycling
basslines, steady 8th-note maracas and quarter-note sleigh bells, Chris Davies taking lead guitar duties pretending he's
Clapton on a tasteful day) is fully equipped to be a religious myth, with all the dramatic heft and stylish partial
incomprehensibility you could ask.
Many of her songs seem to be autobiographical (Late correction from Cindy's friend Russ Lewis: are autobiographical).
And I do need to say that if "High Jump" had been on a Natalie Merchant album, where all but the vocals would've fit, its
anthemic tale--- of using her state-champ success on the guy's sports team to feel proud, despite all the idiocies of
high-school life--- would have been a much-deserved hit. "Diane", driven by cello and timpani, is a successful story of
meeting an old crush after his sex-change operation. Even the half-sung beat-poesy verses of "Jane And John" form a
detailed, if scattered, reminiscence of her life with a couple and their trust fund; it's only the sheer jubilant drum-hammered
aimlessness of the chorus--- "Jane and John! Jane and John!"--- that reminds me of Liz Phair's wonderful "California",
wherein Liz tells a lengthy joke about bulls making plans to go have sex with cows, half-apologizes for the punchline when
she reaches it, and keep injecting the chorus "That's why I moved to California!". Cindy Lee has a "California" here too, a
soft guitar-and-voice closer in which a dozen or more lines about (if I may quote Kurt Cobain) "I think I'm dumb, or am I
just happy?" surround a verse about an unidentified "she" who "had a pet alligator that ran around my house and jumped on
my lap like a dog".
My point is not that all songs ought to come pre-encrypted for our listening pleasure. It's that... well, when we're
youngsters, we all get taught to share, right? Some of us even learn. But then we grow up and we realize there's all these
conditions, and we're only supposed to share stuff _after_ it's perfect, immune to the criticisms of those pompous but often
compelling souls who can neither do nor teach. Which means hardly ever, and indeed I've never heard the phrase "thank you
for sharing" in any context other than biting sarcasm (of course that's cuz I never go to encounter groups, but then, who
does, these days?). Cindy, on the other hand, is the accidental co-inventor of the Living Room Tour, where in '95 she toured
the country playing shows in, yes, the living rooms of her fans. Concerts in fans' living rooms! Isn't that incredible? Isn't
that noble and generous and great? Isn't that completely irrational? That spirit, and her belief that _of course_ we want to
know who Jane and John were, are part and parcel. As music alone, MARYSVILLE is quite interesting, a keeper; but its
unself-consciousness, even when as content alone it frustrates me, makes this a comfort album of the first rank.
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