Two videos, including one for "Stupid or Something," can be seen here.
Ben Godwin, Skin and Bone
Speaking of Tom Waits, there's a little of him in Ben Godwin, a Londoner transplanted to New York. With a gritty voice that's half Joe Cocker and half Ian Anderson, Godwin belts out a set of theatrical, jazz-inflected tunes inspired by New York City life. By turns soulful ("Constantly Reminded"), Bacharachian ("Paper Thin Walls"), gentle ("Castaway") and Brelian ("Outsize Shoes"), Godwin's songs are as old-fashioned as the intelligibility of the lyrics he pipes out with his thick baritone. "Poverty's a crime in the poorhouse / And the punishment is life / The lucky ones work in the slaughterhouse / And the rest go under the knife," he bellows in the title track, where you should also listen for Julie LaMendola's eerie saw-playing.
"We'll sweat our hearts out / Fill a rich man's cup in the New World City / We'll break our backs building monuments to the sky / Catch our fingers in the teeth of the machinery," he cries like Bertholdt Brecht and Kurt Weill in "New World City," but we'll also "make a new religion out of rusted cars / Our televisions, and our hollow stars." "So very precious," cries the Everyman of Godwin's tales, "but we're only worth a song in the New World City." But the value of a song, as Godwin certainly knows, is boundless.
Echoing Jacques Brel's "The Bulls," "New World City" ends with a litany of places, cities all over the world where people struggle. But unlike the Brel song, which leaves us with its grim battlefield images, Godwin's "La la la" chorus returns for a final affirmation of life amidst the dirt and grime.
This music is serious, fun, and definitely different. You can hear extended samples at CD Baby.
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