Even the song “Truckdrivin’ Neighbors Downstairs” from my first record. It wasn’t just a joke.They meant something to me, even when they were funny. Isn’t irony when you don’t mean what you say? I really did mean what I was saying in those songs. First of all, it dismissed the other aspects of the songs.And I’m still not sure what was so ironic about what I was doing. I might as well have a laugh before it disappears.”īLVR: Did it bother you when you got labeled as the poster child for irony?ī: I hated it. My thinking was, “This can’t possibly last. I assumed it’d all just go away after awhile. Even when I got a record deal, I never really took it seriously. But, y’know, a lot of it was about making fun of myself or the music business. So I’d make up a song about some inside joke we had, just something to make them laugh. They were coming to see me after work, and I wanted to let them know I knew they were there. I was contending with a crowd that was drinking and talking and smoking and really didn’t care about listening to some kid with an acoustic guitar.You had to work a little harder to get them to not ignore you, and playing funny songs was a way to do that. When I started out, I was playing solo gigs at places like Raji’s or Al’s Bar, kind of loud rock bars. The more personal songwriting I kept to myself. Humor was just one small part of what I was doing, but for some reason I didn’t always feel comfortable sharing the rest of it. Were you deliberately trying to become the court jester of indie rock, or was the role kind of thrust on you?ī: It was a combination of things. IF SOMEONE’S RADAR ONLY GOES AS FAR AS THE BRADY BUNCH, THAT’S WHAT’S GOING TO GET REFLECTED BACK AT YOU.”īLVR: Your first few albums, like Mellow Gold and Stereopathetic Soul Manure, were made up almost entirely of jokey songs. On occasion, the silence dragged on for so long that I was convinced he’d hung up on me. He spoke in a soft murmur, almost a whisper, and he took his sweet time answering my questions.
This interview took place by phone, as Beck was preparing to hit the road for yet another world tour. Or the serious songs are somehow funnier than we realize. How does he do it? How does an artist go from “Satan Gave Me a Taco” to “Nobody’s Fault but My Own” and back again? How does he write lyrics like “Gettin’ crazy with the Cheez Whiz” and then, just a few albums later, “You gotta drive all night just to feel like you’re OK,” and somehow manage to keep a straight face? Unless the funny songs are really meant to be taken seriously. His latest, Guero (Spanish slang for “white boy”), marks a return of the “funny” Beck, with its comic rapping and mariachi-style party anthems. He’s gone from the white-trash rock of Mellow Gold to the earnest folk of Mutations to the silly sex-funk of Midnight Vultures to the down-tempo introspection of Sea Change.
Over the course of eight albums, Beck has provided ample evidence of an artist suffering from multiple personalities. The transition happens so seamlessly that it’s often hard to tell where the honesty ends and the comedy begins, or even if there’s a difference (at least in Beck’s eyes) between the two. And then, just as quickly, he becomes a clown again, delighting in ironic detachment and goofy antics. At one moment, he can be almost unsettlingly vulnerable, exposing the raw nerves of his psyche for the world to see. You couldn’t ask for a better (or more confusing) summation of Beck’s musical sensibilities. Beck complained at first, reminding Ferrell, “I gotta play that thing, man.” But before long, he went back to singing with the same thinly concealed grief in his voice. He did an interpretive dance and dry-humped Beck’s pump organ. Mere moments after the song began, Will Ferrell wandered onto the stage in a red spandex unitard. Midway through his set, he played “Lost Cause,” a mournful ballad about divorce and emotional isolation. At a recent benefit show in L.A., Beck proved yet again why he’s so difficult to categorize.
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