Interview: Michael Penn

Michael Penn is best known for his 1989 album March, which spawned the Top 20 single, "No Myth" and two other hits.  Since then, he has released four fantastic albums that mix clever, literate wordplay with Beatlesesque pop smarts.  Penn has also composed scores for such films as Melvin Goes To Dinner and Boogie Nights, in which he also had a cameo as a recording engineer.  Next Tuesday, he is releasing two CDs, an expanded version of his 2005 album, Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947, and a best-of CD called Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea.  In advance of the releases, I spoke with Penn about his career.  Below are excerpts from that interview.

Let's start with the expanded version of Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947.  What's new on the album? 

It's a two-disc set.  The first disc is the album, with a new hidden track, and the second disc is a live performance at KCRW and the video for "Walter Reed."

In light of recent discoveries, the song "Walter Reed" obviously takes on new, and even sadder, dimensions than you intended, especially on the last line of the chorus where you sing, "'cause every good thing I've had abandoned me."  Now, the one thing the main character could count on has left him, too. 

Absolutely.  That was happening when I wrote the record.  It's gotten more publicity now but it was sort of brewing.  In fact, right after the initial release is when then-Secretary Of Defense Rumsfeld announced that they were going to dismantle Walter Reed.  For me, that hospital is very iconic.  It's America's hospital.  

Interestingly enough, it's also the first place to deal with what used to be called "shell shock," but now we know as post-traumatic stress disorder.  And for a country like ours that was still suffering a collective PTSD as a result of the attacks of September 11, the idea that the government was going to remove the cure was interesting. 

The other CD that is being released is a Best Of CD, Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea.  The first thing I noticed is that the CD is not sequenced chronologically.  Why is that? 

I look at albums as a very specific kind of experience with two separate acts, and each act is a manageable amount of music.  I'm old enough to remember vinyl albums and the experience of being in the mood to hear either Side One or Side Two.  I think an album needs to be a journey of sorts from Point A to Point B where you're moving into different moods and tempos and it has its own collective space.  So I wanted to do that with the collection  

Article Author: Dave Lifton

Dave Lifton is a writer whose take on pop culture can be found at Wings For Wheels. He also blogs about soccer at Booked For Dissent.

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