Hello, all!
I am going to introduce you to an artist that some of you may know, but I would be willing to bet that many of you don't. His name is Ben Folds.
For those who are a bit older, Ben had a few hits back in the 2000's with his band at the time called Ben Folds Five. Some of the tracks ended up in movies and on shows. These days, Ben mainly tours on his own, and he is known for doing a combination of solo tours, as well as playing with orchestras of various sizes. The last time I saw him, he played with yMusic, a sextet chamber ensemble.
There are two things about Ben that make him resonate in my musical selection.
The first element is lyrical meaning. When I was younger and listened to him, I didn't place much thought into what his lyrics specifically referred to. I just simply enjoyed his music.
And there's nothing wrong with that. But when I started seeing him live and watching live videos of his, I found that he was keen on explaining the background behind his various songs, often touching on why he wrote them. According to him, they were based on actual events that happened either to him or to others around him.
This resonated majorly with me because it's too often that you have difficulty connecting with a famous person, or feel like they live a normal life on your level. It's not necessarily a direct emotional relation to an event, though. For example, I will be posting two sets of links in this blog involving two songs. The first is titled Brick. According to Folds, the song was written about an experience he had with abortion as a young man. I cannot directly relate to how going through that experience would feel, but understanding the depth of the lyrics makes the song that much more meaningful to me. Here is the first link to the original recording of the song.
The link below directly relates to the second reason Ben Folds resonates to me as an artist. How often do you get to hear an artist you admire perform their work in a completely different setting? In this case, it is with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.
The second link I am attaching is for a song called Narcolepsy. Again, I loved this song when I was younger, and although I inferred what he was referring to in the lyrics, it was really interesting to hear his take on the track prior to a live performance.
The link below is him performing it with the same orchestra, where he explains his personal meaning for the track prior to playing it.
Due to listening to Ben with a different set of ears, or even multiple sets of ears (depending on who he is playing with) over the past 20 years, I have grown to appreciate him and his body of work much more than I initially had. Being able to assign meaning to his work, as well as hear it through a different dimension has helped enrich this appreciation. Out of all of my favorite artists, I cannot say one has had this specific type of effect on me as a listener.
I have two questions for you as the reader. First, how did hearing separate versions of the songs above resonate with you? Did you have a different emotional feeling when it was played with an orchestra versus the original recording? And did you feel more connected to the second song after he explained its purpose?
Second, have you ever had this type of experience with an artist you enjoy listening to?
Finally, I have attached a bonus video in case you have enjoyed Ben's work. In the video below, Ben creates a song from scratch in ten minutes after giving a lecture at the Kennedy Center. Cheers!
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