(Sad Songs & Waltzes is a recurring feature on Muzzle of Bees, where artists share their favorite sad songs. Previous contributors include Megafaun, Delta Spirit, Damien Jurado, Conrad Plymouth, Frontier Ruckus, and Roadside Graves.)

By Ben Weaver:

One morning my son said to me, “Dad, when you are sleeping you can see your dreams.” Sad things make me happy, and happy things make me cry, and crying does not always mean I am sad. So what is a sad song? When I was working in the restaurant, every Wednesday these inner city kids would come in and sell us produce from their garden. They grew beautiful stuff and I always got choked up when they came in. Their interest in growing food instead of playing xbox overwhelmed me. I prefer the notion that things can be beautiful without being pretty, and I can’t understand how a beautiful thing could be made up of anything less than equal parts of good and bad, pretty and ugly, happy and sad. In trying to think of what songs make me cry I realized that it is not always a sad song that makes me cry as much as it is a true song. So hear is my list of sad-true songs that have the potential to make me scream from the bridge as I ride my bike over the river in the middle of the night.

Chris Bell – “I Am The Cosmos” (listen)
I remember listening to this song driving around the neighborhood when I was growing up. We had this tree that we would hang out under especially in the fall. Smoking cigarettes and being tragic. Something about the idea, particularly in the fall, of telling ourselves stories and watching them go up in smoke while singing the line, “Every night I tell myself, I am the Cosmos,” compounded the invincibility into to perfect melancholy.

Doris Duke – “I Don’t Care Anymore” (listen)
“I met a man who treated me like he bought me by the pound.” From what I know she has disappeared and I heard something about her being a maid in a Toronto hotel. This song is from a record called, I’m a Loser and is by far one of my most treasured finds. Personally I think she puts Aretha to shame.

The Replacements – “Sadly Beautiful” (listen)
Again this takes me back to high school. Growing up in Minneapolis. Feeling like an adult in a teenager’s body. Swearing to god you had it all figured out. That the answer was somewhere out there in the dark and even though no one else believed it, at least Paul Westerberg did.

Jeff Mitchell – “Let’s Leave Her Here” (listen)
This is one of my favorite songs. In my mind its brilliance lies in the fact that he could be singing about a million different things and every one of them would be what the song was about. Each line has an individual story. I miss Jeff.

Neil Young – “On The Beach” (listen)
“I need a crowd of people, but I can’t face them day to day.” No one could sum it up better.

Randy Newman – “I Miss You” (listen)
Halfway through this song, when the drums come in I always start to loose my shit. I know the production leaves a lot to be desired and it’s a bit of a cliché to write someone a love song 20 years too late, but still something gets me every time. Maybe it’s that you can always hear New Orleans in every dam note he plays.

Roscoe Holcomb – “The Hills of Mexico” (listen)
When I hear his voice and banjo I have to stop doing whatever I’m doing. I don’t know what it is exactly, some ultimate truth, every needle in every haystack, the high and the low. It’s all there in his playing and singing.

Townes Van Zandt – “Marie” (listen)
“I got to get Marie some kind of coat, were heading down into fall.” This time of year that line enters my brain on a daily basis. The song speaks for itself.

Blaze Foley – “Clay Pigeons” (listen)
“Smoking cigarettes in the last seat, try and hide my sorrow from the people I meet and get along with it all.” I put these two back to back because Townes once said that Marie was not inspired directly by Blaze but that he did put a lot of Blaze’s derelict nature into the song. I guess Blaze favored sleeping under pool tables to a bed.

MP3: Ben Weaver – “East Jefferson”
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Buy: Ben Weaver – Mirepoix & Smoke

I know there are some options for everyone tonight in Madison, but I urge everyone to not miss the Haley Bonar + Ben Weaver show tonight at Cafe Montmartre. I’m honored to be presenting two of my favorite artists, and, at $10, you’re getting a great evening of live music on the cheap.

Previously: 5 Questions with Haley Bonar
Previously: 5 Questions with Ben Weaver
Previously: Photos: Haley Bonar + The Dodos – Terrace, Madison
Previously: We Like: Ben Weaver – Paper Sky

Buy: Haley Bonar – Big Star
Buy: Ben Weaver – The Ax in the Oak
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Myspace: Haley Bonar
Myspace: Ben Weaver
MP3: Haley Bonar – “Something Great”
MP3: Ben Weaver – “White Snow”

Ben Weaver followed up his MoB approved Paper Sky with the equally engaging The Ax in the Oak. I caught up with Ben after his recent performance in Madison at Cafe Montmartre for our continuing 5 Questions with Muzzle of Bees feature.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of The Ax In The Oak? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned that you’ll apply towards future recording sessions?

I wrote the majority of the songs over a 2 weeks stay in Berlin. What I wrote when I was there was mostly words and basic chord/arrangements. I did this on a guitar. Then I went to Chicago and Brian and I started basic tracking the songs. We would start with a simple beat and a guitar or piano track and from there we took turns going back and forth from the live room laying down tracks in response to whatever the previous person had done. A lot of these tracks were played with real instruments and then we processed them afterwards. A lot of the things I learn from recording or creating in general are subconscious, what I mean is that it is like sharpening my instincts, and learning what does and what doesn’t work. The more stuff i make the better I think it gets, the closer it gets to it’s essence. This is something that I hope comes with me to not only the next record but every next record I make, just continuously evolving through creating things.

What lead you to your decision to join Bloodshot records?

Because they are awesome down to earth real people who understand the musical background from which I come, they see and are excited by the way I am trying interpret it. They answer the phone when I call and they do what they say they will do. I feel very lucky to be working with them.

We’re always looking to uncover new favorite artists, are there any band(s)/record(s) that you could recommend to our readers?

I have been fairly obsessed with this Horace Andy record called Dance Hall Style. Also a Doris Duke record called I’m a Looser. I have also been listening to this cellist named David Darling, and keep going to back to that Burial dude.

What is on your bookshelf at the moment? Any books you’ve read over the past year that you’d recommend?

I have been slowly reading the complete journals of Tennessee Williams. One of my favorite books of the last year was called Hotel Theory/Hotel Women by Wayne Koestenbaum.

The internet has dramatically altered the way artists can reach an audience. With things like blogs/myspace/etc, what are your thoughts on the power of the internet in terms of helping (or hurting) your music?

I think it is a double edged sword. On one hand it is good to have so many different ways for people to discover new music art etc… however I cant help but feel that in a way all the accessibility desensitizes people and they wind up getting overflowed with information and stuff that they are not capable of processing or completely digesting. Clearly we no longer live in the world where you have to go to the record store at midnight on Monday to get the new record, or tape shit from the radio before its released. I think this kept a certain amount of longing present in the search and anticipation for new music. Now this longing is not as present, it’s all instant gratification. I can’t help but feel something is getting lost there. I don’t think anyone truly knows where we are heading in terms of buying, listening, viewing art. This is where the live show is so important, because you still have to buy tickets, wait a month for the show and stand in line at the door, that mystery and magic that has existed in seeing a live show can’t be replicated in anyway. In the end I think the most important thing for art and music is to allow people to connect to something as well as to each other. Whatever way that happens is fine with me, I just hope that we don’t start drinking music from a cup at some point.

Myspace: Ben Weaver
MP3: Ben Weaver – “White Snow”

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