CD Reviews: T Bone Burnett - Twenty Twenty: The Essential T Bone Burnett and The True False Identity - Page 2

Listening to The True False Identity, however, one really gets the impression that the obfuscation of Burnett's own identity is an intentional one. "Honesty is the most subversive of all disguises," he intones during the ominous tribal rumble of "Hollywood Mecca of the Movies." "I said goodbye a long time ago / You must not have heard me." And while I'm not one to confuse the poet with the poetic persona, it's hard not to read this as a direct address to the audience, even a statement of intent for The True False Identity as a whole. Here is the core of an ingenious record, Burnett's most complex and fleshed-out investigation of the self yet; an album which drops facades by erecting entirely new ones, often more bewildering than the ones he's given us before.

Take "Palestine, Texas": a driving song with chanted, almost rapped lyrics over one of Burnett's most vicious guitar grooves. The first two verses are all but impenetrable, conjuring characters who share the Rat Pack's Christian names only to immediately discard them amidst oblique references to terrorism, Vietnam, and the Ku Klux Klan, then topping it off with a chorus which amounts to a vitriolic repetition of the title. But on the bridge, he drops the bomb in a big way: "Presidents come and Presidents go / They rise like smoke, they fall like snow / Do you believe the things you say / Your lofty thoughts are filled with hay." Suddenly the lyrics cut with the same visceral impact as the music; Burnett's usually cryptic pronouncements change course and rocket straight for the Oval Office. Almost before we get the chance to process this sleight of hand, however, the mask comes up again: "This version of the world will not be here long," he announces. "It is already gone, it is already gone." The prophet persona is back, but juxtaposed with the direct political condemnations of the preceding verse, the meaning of these words couldn't be clearer. If this is the true face of T Bone Burnett, then his is the crimson-eyed visage of a vengeful god.

Except I don't think The True False Identity represents the "real" T Bone Burnett at all; that much can be gleaned from just a glance at the title. What it does represent, to me, is just another manifestation of who Burnett has always been: not a prophet, a charlatan, or an angry deity, but a storyteller. Sometimes—as in opening track "Zombieland," a the scathing critique of a complacent society—his stories are direct and immediate, with concrete positions and subjects. Sometimes—as in the surreal, vividly painted murder ballad "There Would Be Hell to Pay"—they are vague, image-oriented, profound in almost inexplicable ways. And then there are stories like "Hefner and Disney" on Twenty Twenty, which go beyond mystery and leap straight into bafflement. In a way, though, they're all equally worthwhile—the only difference is a simple matter of whether the songs are in the first person, the second or the third.

On his latest release, of course, we see more of T Bone Burnett's "second-person" side: these are fiery, pointed songs, raining down judgement on the current presidential administration and political situation as if it's the culmination of all of Burnett's previous stabs at the American condition. "Blinded By the Darkness," the raging climax of the album, is an almost exhausting listen, as he drops all pretense and just lays it all down on the line; half-singing, half-shouting lyrics like "Do we want to inject the concept of sin / into the Constitution?" over the monotonous growl of a fuzz-drenched electric guitar. It sounds more like the work of an impassioned street corner preacher than a poet or a songwriter, but then, there's always been a strain of that in Burnett's work; his tendency toward overt finger-pointing is even cited by Bill Flanagan in his Twenty Twenty liner notes as a possible reason why 1983's mostly third-person release Proof Through the Night still hasn't seen the light of day on CD. But now, of course, T Bone is a new man, and in a sense the lyrical honesty of "Blinded By the Darkness" excites even as it frustrates. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if this latest anti-Bush rant is unlikely to win over any opponents, his attempt to shake some sense into the public is admirable.

Article Author: Modern Pea Pod

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