Violet Baudelaire
Between soft-launching his new solo record A Pail Full of Fire on streaming services, his Son of Town Hall side project and its accompanying podcast Mad Men Cross the Water and his upcoming performance at the Center for Contemporary Arts (7 pm Saturday, Nov. 16. $25. 1050 Old Pecos Trail, (505) 982-1338), songwriter David Berkeley has been a busy guy. Berkeley tells SFR he’s entered a period of self-reflection—time moves ever-forward, he says, and grappling with the past and future becomes the centerpiece to his newest work. We spoke with Berkeley ahead of his show to learn more. This interview has been edited for clarity and concision. (Alex De Vore)
Those who know your work know you’re kind of a literary guy—or maybe the right word is “storyteller.” What’s the story with the new record?
I’ve got two kids, and one has just turned 18—and both of them are now taller than me. This record is really about the passage of time and the shape of a long love, which…I’m still married; we’re married now 20 years. It’s about facing the reality of our children getting up there and growing older; about tragedies in our community in the last few years, and…the record tries to take that stuff on. It’s about trying to take stock in where we’re at in our lives right now and making peace and coming to terms with the fact that time passes faster than we want it to pass. There’s a melancholy to it. Bittersweet is good, too. There is a real sweetness and peace where I’m at, but I’m not going to act like I’m thrilled that some of the phases in my life are over. In a lot of my previous writing and recording, I think I would work hard to find the positive moral message, but with this record, I’m letting myself sit in this space we’re all in. In the past, I’ve wanted to find something more universal, but right now it seems that some of the best advice is not to give advice, or to listen and express we’re in the same space.
Singer-songwriter Anna Tivel features on the new album. You’ve definitely done some collaborations in the past here and there, but I wouldn’t say it’s your hallmark—what made you want to collab with Tivel for this one?
On about half the songs, she sings. Logistically, Anna lives in Oregon, in Portland, and we were recording in Eugene. I’ve come to love Anna’s voice and her songwriting for sure. There’s something so plaintive and natural about it, and there’s a sweetness and a sadness to it. She sang on a song of mine about four years ago and we’ve toured together and we’ve sung onstage, so I knew our voices work together. Anna’s voice is effortless, and since I kind of figured out how to sing in the studio after 20 years, we needed to find that singer who had that natural comfort with her own voice without trying to push and belt. There were certain songs where it almost felt inappropriate to have a voice that wasn’t my wife’s. I don’t know that we were like, ‘OK, you’re going to be Sarah [Davis] on this,’ but what are the songs that were appropriate to have another voice? I do a little bit of singing with myself, but it was more a question of—is this song sung by a narrator who is alone and reacting, or a song that can have some harmony and some other perspective?
Since we kind of look to them to sort out our feelings, I’m always curious about whether/how artists use the political landscape around them. Would you say you’re influenced by world events and, if so, what’s on your docket right now given our…ugh…new president?
Ummmm. I’m very influenced by the world around me and what’s happening. No, A Pail Full of Fire was not influenced by world events, but—well, that’s not totally true. The first song is, and actually, I started it at the tail end of COVID, and that song for me is very much about how out of touch we’ve become with the world around us—environmentally, mostly, but politically as well. A Pail Full of Fire is much more human and emotional. But over the years I’ve released a number of songs that are very much political. Two records back I released The Faded Red & Blue, and that’s all about Trump and the Trump era. I tried to write what i call ‘political love songs,’ though that’s not a genre that exists. When I’m trying to write politically, I’m trying not to write angry songs that are going to divide farther. I try to find some higher ground…a list of things I think are worth fighting for. I mean, I’m not an essayist, but in my songs’ best form, they’re trying to tap into something that the political speech doesn’t get at, because we get mired in the divisions. I will respond to what’s happening now at some point, I think, but I’m not ready. A lot of us feel that way right now. We’re exhausted and shocked and sad and it’s hard to know how to pick ourselves up, but it will come. A friend of mine was saying we don’t have to do everything, and I think what you have to do is figure out what you do best in your community and do that the best you can. If you’re a parent, a teacher, if you cook—whatever it is, it’s that kind of love we bring to our lives we have to keep doing. It feels important, but right now I’m more aware of how different I feel. Last time [with Trump] I wept constantly thinking about my children and the world we were ruining for them. I don’t feel that way right now. I don’t know why, but yes, there’s fucking terror. Both my kids are going to be of military age. I don’t want this guy leading anything, but for me it comes back to what I can do. I don’t want to do anything that preaches to the choir. Until I can find a way to lift the discourse, I’d rather stay silent for a while and maybe cover Radiohead songs.
