Myrtle

"Myrtle" is the first song on the first Vic Chesnutt album I owned, 1996's About To Choke, which sadly appears to be out of print. I had ordered it song unheard through the bizarre phenomenon of the BMG Music Club, which allowed members to purchase dozens of albums for less than the cost of the materials, in exchange for purchasing one at a slightly inflated price. How this business model was in any way different from the kinds of contemporary internet schemes in terms of fairness to artists, I do not know. But About To Choke was Chesnutt's first and only "major" label recording, and ironically, the only one not in print.

I first heard of Chesnutt because of a song he co-wrote with fellow Athens, Georgia resident Jack Logan on the latter's aptly-titled Bulk, a collection of 42 mostly home-recorded country, punk, bar-rock, folk, blues, and unclassifiable songs. That album is also out-of-print, and disgustingly offered for only a penny as a used CD in online stores. Chesnutt's collaboration with Logan was "The Parishioners", which I intend to write about in full for this blog. I can't say the song made a huge impression on me, but it put Chesnutt on my radar, as did his known connections with Michael Stipe and R.E.M., who were heroes of mine when I was in high school. Before the full blossoming of the internet, which enables people to quickly and easily suss out musical connections and recommendations based on their favorite artists, I would rely on liner notes, thank yous, and magazine articles to establish who might be an interesting artist/band to check out. And I used BMG much the same way some people use mp3 blogs, to (relatively) risk-free test out music to see if it's worth further investment. Though I have to admit, it was a few years after getting About To Choke in the mail that I purchased another Vic Chesnutt album.

The delay in my Chesnutt appreciation wasn't due to any outright aversion to About To Choke, but more to the fact that my musical exposure was still limited, and that his work really does take time to be appreciated, an acquired taste if ever there was, though immensely rewarding. Like Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, and Leonard Cohen before him, Chesnutt has his own style of singing that is next to impossible to compare with anyone else's. His Georgia drawl exaggerates, twists and elongates vowel sounds almost beyond their breaking point, so it's no surprise that he's not accepted as a beautiful singer in a society that worships American Idols. But from a different perspective, he is one of the best singers we have, capable of a wide range of moods and characteristics, from fragile to strident, vulnerable to wicked, hangdog to jubilant. He rarely strays out of key unless it's the wiggle of his words that invites a slight sharp or flat, and he can pull off singing words that most writers and singers would never, ever attempt. Take "Myrtle" for example. The song is just over three minutes long, and contains the following words and phrases:

Funny pilgrim

Crazy crusade

Saucy Chaucer

Exacto knife

Load bearing wall

I whupped it out

Subrealist

Substantiate

Chesnutt is not your typical writer, but neither does he come off as a show-off. His style sounds completely natural for him, imbuing even the saddest, most poignant songs with a love of words and playful spirit. It's easy to be inspired by his obvious passion for language, but impossible to imitate.

"Myrtle", for the opening song on his major-label debut, is not a grand gesture, and it probably left more than one Capitol Records exec in tears of exasperation. It consists solely of Chesnutt's echo-drenched vocals over sparsely played and strummed piano and guitar. Single notes ping out in the gloom, and the song's climax doesn't come until the very end, when he sings one of his most beloved passages, "It was bigger than me / And I felt like a sick child / Dragged by a donkey / Through the myrtle." This is the line that was referenced by Sparklehorse's "Little Fat Baby" ("He got dragged by a donkey / Through the switches / And the myrtle / But he was once a little fat baby").