Though playing the game of lyrical analysis is always dicey, some themes recur throughout the album. Several songs are built around wholesome things like anger, disgust, and cynicism. Chesnutt sneers a litany of insults in “Little Fucker,” leaving the unnamed F-bomber in question to “Dry up in the sun/Like a raisin/Or a leather skeleton,” derisively concluding, “He’s good riddance.” In the wryly humorous and bouncy “And How,” Chesnutt takes some more shots at a hapless victim, suggesting that the individual “Open up your trash/Then go take a bath/You’ll need one.”
Like many of Chesnutt’s earlier songs, this release is rife with images of death and decay, often accompanied with dark humor. “Stop the Horse” references a possibly deceased politician whose age might now be counted in dirt years, with Chesnutt singing that he “Can already smell the county bloat.” The upbeat singing of “Teddy Bear” betrays the bleak statement that “He ain’t never coming back;” though who or what the Teddy Bear refers to is open to interpretation.
“Bilocating Dog” is pure dark comedy, complete with a morbid sense of humor and skewed rhyme scheme: “Johnny was a terrier/He had his first seizure/At the feet of old Auntie Lee/You should of heard her screaming.” It should also be noted that this emphasis on death is reflected in the album’s artwork; the painting included on the back cover, with its numerous political undertones, is itself worthy of close examination.
Though some of the new songs are occasionally reminiscent of Chesnutt’s previous songs – opening track “Mystery,” with is prominent harmonica and minimal instrumentation, wouldn’t be out of place on Is the Actor Happy? – Dark Developments marks a noticeable stylistic shift for the artist. Chesnutt’s singing becomes more controlled with each subsequent album; the days when he’d stretch a word like “Florida” into 14 syllables accompanied by sparse instrumentation are long gone. With musical and vocal assists from Elf Power and the Amorphous Strums, the album successfully merges Chesnutt’s penchant for melody with his more experimental and electric tendencies.
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