What's your favorite track?

I was driving on an empty highway during a blizzard last winter listening to "Snow is Falling in Manhattan" and that kinda solidified my love for that song. But really every single track is great.

It's kinda weird because I had only discovered Silver Jews like 6 months before Purple Mountains came out. Then like a week later David was dead. Shit sucks

I feel you, man. I was a long time fan but still got into them after they'd broken up. Some Silver Jews songs were like anthems to me through my 20s. They also taught me that "hey, maybe lyrics are worth caring about". I had tickets to his Toronto show and was so excited to go but then he died instead. It still hits me hard sometimes to think of him as being dead.

Probably the weakest song on the album IMO but maybe the catchiest. Still a great song. Interesting choice
Margaritas at the mall. The whole "looking for a nod from God" part is incredible. I nearly shit my pants when I first heard it

good choice, don't know if it's mine but it has some of berman's best lines imo desu senpai
>You got storyline fever, storyline flu
>Apparently impairing your point of view
>It's making horseshit sound true to you
>Now it's impacting how you're acting too
there's a lot of aggressive smart ass lines like that on purple mountains that aren't on any other silver jews release, those are my favorite personally.

I'm just glad that
a) this album exists
b) this album didn't fall victim to the "flavour of the month" cycle that so many albums fall victim to. I think it's a genuinely important album, I hope people are still talking about this 5, 10 years down the line. You read interviews about this with Malkmus or other Berman-adjacent people and they allude to the fact that he was pouring over this thing for years and years trying to make it perfect.

I don't know, there's already smart ass shit on Silver Jews
>I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men's room walls

Tough choice, but my favorite is definitely "Margaritas at the Mall"
>How long can the world go on under such a subtle God?
>How long can the world go on with no new word from God?
>See the plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God
>Trodding the sod of the visible with no new word from God

>"The end of all wanting is all I've been wanting" in the bridge is a little bit of a haunting lyric knowing how things turned
That's from "That's Just the Way That I Feel," not either of the songs you mentioned. Which is probably my second favorite song on the album. I especially like the:
>And when I see her in the park
>It barely merits a remark
>How we stand the standard distance
>Distant strangers stand apart

I think it's actually a nice touch how they didn't make any fancy pantsy limited edition vinyl editions for this album like everyone and their mother does now, just one black version that's available to everyone. It just kind of reiterates: this album is about the music, not about sales

i don't know how Zig Forums feels about drag city but they seem like good lads
apparently they let berman stay and sleep in one of the rooms above the label's main building during the recording of purple mountains since they felt so bad about him

darkness and cold is the best track. god what an album

I didn't know about that, that's really sweet of them. Damn I wish David was still here ;_;

Margaritas at the Mall is the 200iq choice because it speaks to the pathetic, hollow, 21st century "happy place" we occupy while we all wait to die. The other songs, while sonically amazing, just boil down to "she doesn't love me any more," "nobody wants to fuck me," and "mommy."

Get out.

>this album didn't fall victim to the "flavour of the month" cycle that so many albums fall victim to
I genuinely think that Purple Mountains is one of the best albums of the last decade.

>Lately, I tend to make strangers wherever I go
>Some of them were once people I was happy to know

did David relapse on crack before he killed himself? what's the story?

It is perhaps the best of the decade. Especially as indie music and singer/songwriter has largely stalled this past decade.. Purple Mountains was a beautiful and tragic anomaly

He got divorced and his mother died. Probably felt like he no longer had anything keeping him here anymore

The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind
When the here and the hereafter momentarily align
See the need to speed into the lead suddenly declined
The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind

And as much as we might like to seize the reel and hit rewind
Or quicken our pursuit of what we're guaranteed to find
When the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides
All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind
All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind

Nights that won't happen
Time we won't spend
Time we won't spend
With each other again
With each other again

Ghosts are just old houses dreaming people in the night
Have no doubt about it, hon, the dead will do alright
Go contemplate the evidence and I guarantee you'll find
The dead know what they're doing when they leave this world behind

Nights that won't happen
Time we won't spend
Nights that won't happen
Never ever again
Nights that won't happen
Never reaching the end
Nights that won't happen
Never even begin
Never even begin

This world is like a roadside inn and we're the guests inside
And death is a black camel that kneels down so we can ride
And when the dying's finally done and the suffering subsides
All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind
All the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind

On nights that won't happen
Time we won't spend
Time we won't spend
With each other again
Nights that won't happen
Never reaching the end
Nights that won't happen
We can't even begin
We can't even begin

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David said himself that Margaritas at the Mall was his favorite track on the album

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He really was one of the best poets of his generation - granted it's hard to find poets who are able to refine their art outside of a hobby - and this song felt like a high water mark.

I love Storyline Fever. but if you have ever listened to the band Woods, you can easily tell it's basically just a Woods song with Berman on vocals. It's a cute song. I think it's a nice touch on an album that was produced by Woods themself.

youtube.com/watch?v=8Z8Wwfxl3ec

youtube.com/watch?v=QmxHOdIbZ1g

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based pick

purple mountains as a whole seemed like a pain in the ass to work on for berman, it's surprising he finished it. apparently there were recorded demos with malkmus (hope they're released someday if they're still around) and dan bejar. i know really little about dan but whatever they worked on sounds interesting, i hope they don't fade away
>Bejar reflected that he had trouble getting Berman to sing in the studio and that, compared to the songs on Purple Mountains, the songs they recorded were "incredibly loud and brittle and dry and compressed" with vocals similar to that of Serge Gainsbourg. Bejar also revealed that there are "halfway to final mixes of an album's worth of music" but that decision to release them is up to Drag City. Bejar also said that he is unsure if Berman "would have wanted the world to hear it."[

my bad. I went back to see where I had heard David say Margaritas at the Mall was his favorite track on the record and realized he actually said Darkness and Cold is his favorite.

youtube.com/watch?v=K7jYMwoqX_o

@50:30

I still love that song though. I love the "50 gates of understanding, 49 are closed" lyrics.

nice, looks like I have good taste

fuck

That's just the way I feel