B.A. Johnston - I Love it When You Dress Up: youtube.com/watch?v=RkmDCqkJYlk
I don't remember the first time I saw B.A. Johnston but I do remember the first time I heard of him. Richard told me he had been at Gus' Pub one night and there was a band onstage, all wearing bad suits, and they started playing, were looking around as if something was wrong. Then their attention went toward the lotto machines in back of the bar where there was another guy in a bad suit. That guy got pissed, kicked the lotto machine and came onstage, started singing. Richard said it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen, with some kind of wonder behind it all.
And I listened to some of B.A.'s songs after, saw him perform and I was a convert. There is something about his songs that capture both the lowest of humour and the worst of heartbreak that I really admire, it all seems so unabashedly confessional.
And what of the "confessional" lyric? It can go so terribly wrong at times but when it's right it's really right. Ani DiFranco has been guilty of both bad and good confession in its worst and best forms. But all example aside the confessional is attractive I think because we all, everyone, have in us the ability to be the most evil, self-hating and low garbage of beings possible. And who wants to admit that? It seems natural to let it go, forget it, move past and toward the good. But when someone admits to their worst, admits a particular instance where they have been such, it can be refreshing. Especially when that person seems admirable.
The confessional lyric has to go beyond the "I'm a shit" stage, though, to make it worth anything. There has to be something else behind the words whether it be celebration, regret, sorrow, etc. It's a difficult form for otherwise you're just bragging.
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