A Dream About Lightning Bugs

by Ben Folds

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  While writing the song “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” I thought a lot about Stevie Wonder, who grew up black and blind in the turbulence prior to the civil-rights movement. One can’t imagine that challenge. Don’t you think he had more to be pissed off about than the majority of white middle-class suburbanites? And yet, alongside some rightfully edgy songs like “Living for the City,” Stevie wrote songs about the full range of the human experience. All the emotions—sadness, happiness, empathy, despair. Why was the popular music of the suburban youth so “one-holler-fits-all”? Is there a line connecting all of this to the political landscape of 2016, when the now-grown-up consumers of this music decided a world-changing election? “Rockin’ the Suburbs” is just a fun observation—more a question mark than an answer, but it was something I was compelled to think about.

  And speaking of Stevie Wonder, whatever happened to love songs? It didn’t seem anyone of my generation had dared touch the “Love Song” with a ten-foot pole. It wasn’t cool. There were some cheesy love songs on pop radio, as always, but more-serious songwriters didn’t seem to want to broach that genre anymore. From R.E.M. to Nirvana, it just wasn’t the “Decade of Love” for rock dudes. I’d never considered writing a damn love song either, until I was approached in 1999 by moviemaker Amy Heckerling, who’d made Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless. She had this glorious final long one-shot nerd-kissing scene in her new movie, Loser, which required a love song, so I took the plunge. I watched the scene over and over, taking in the camera pacing, and considered the lives of these two nerds embraced in a kiss in a final bold scene. I delivered the song to the movie studio kind of assuming I’d get some kind of award for it. But the whole scene was cut from the movie after a focus group didn’t like it.

  As the song sat for a year, I came to realize it was incomplete. The third verse wasn’t right. It was a crayon scribbling of the concept of love, not the real thing. That’s the danger of writing a love song. Love is so hard to describe. It’s complex, and it’s easy to oversimplify and end up with dross. I suppose that’s why my peers had avoided it. When I was recording Suburbs, the ninety-year-old man next door to me died in his sleep, and his wife passed away days later. A lifelong partnership, like the one my elderly next-door neighbors had, was something we’d all be lucky to experience. It’s what I wanted so badly in my life, which, along with my wild impulsiveness, had led to my many stumbles and falls. And so that would be the third verse.

  The movie rejection had given me time to finish it properly, and now “The Luckiest” could be on my album. It would also be free years later to find its proper home in the Richard Curtis movie About Time, placed in such a dignified and poetic way as to give me the unique experience of hearing my music and forgetting I was the one who wrote it.

  Completed just in time to be on Rockin’ the Suburbs, “The Luckiest” was recorded with the assistant engineer while Ben Grosse was busy mixing the rest of the album. Grosse had yet to hear the song and I was nervous he wouldn’t dig it. It was the last track he mixed, finishing as the sun came up. I had passed out on the sofa in the other room and he woke me up with teary eyes—a wonderful compliment. Wow, I thought, if I could make this tough motherfucker cry, I just might have written a good love song. He said he hoped he’d done it justice with the mix. If there’s a song I’ve written that will outlive me, it’s “The Luckiest.” Not a week goes by without someone telling me they were married to this song (I never tire of hearing that). Yes, Ben Grosse, you did it justice!

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  Everyone had seemed so gratuitously edgy in the nineties. All that rock “edge” seemed silly. Fashion-magazine silly. Not tough. In truth, the nineties was a decade of relatively smooth sailing, culturally and politically. We rock stars were actually a softer breed than those who came before us, despite all the shouting and snarking. So were our audiences. The economy was relatively stable and most of us were growing up better off than our parents. There had been no major wars, at least not in our neck of the woods. Hunger mortality in the entire world was declining; death by infectious diseases was being beaten down like never before. I’m not saying there wasn’t anything to complain about and that some didn’t have it unbelievably rough, but it’s notable that our music got more pissed off as things got cushier.

  Alas, the tides would soon change, and the waters would become a lot choppier in 2001. It’s worth noting that with the increased turbulence, the music actually got sweeter in the 2000s—“the aughts,” as they are often called. There were more harmonies in pop music, more pianos, more love songs, more smiling. Anger and distortion became a little less welcome, almost passé.

  Rockin’ the Suburbs was tracked back during President Bill Clinton’s last months in office, when life was more innocent and music was angrier. My overdubs were recorded as we learned the term “hanging chads.” We were mixing the tracks as the Supreme Court chose George W. Bush as our next president. The mastering took place during his inauguration. Rockin’ the Suburbs was released on September 11. Class of 2001.

  Tour calendar from September 2001

  GOING IT ALONE

  ON THE MORNING OF THE release of Rockin’ the Suburbs, I was seated at an upright piano on live radio in Washington, D.C., pounding out a ridiculous comedy song called “Hiro’s Song.” It’s about a businessman in midlife crisis, dating his daughter’s best friend and trying on low-riding jeans at the mall that reveal his ass crack. The DJs were politely chuckling at this ridiculous ditty when their attention drifted to the TV screens above my head. There was obviously something very heavy happening. Planes were crashing into the World Trade Center. “Hiro’s Song” suddenly seemed really inappropriate and long. I struggled to find an early ending so we wouldn’t have to yuck it up anymore as this tragedy was unfolding.

  The DJ tried to get me to speculate on air what kind of plane had just hit the building. Like the piano player knew? It was a cargo plane, he thought; what did I think? Well, I thought it was time to go. Washington and the rest of the world had way bigger things to think about now. Our driver had to take a detour on the way back to the hotel. He told us that there were reports that the Pentagon was on fire and the highway was being shut down. Obviously, there would be no show in D.C. that night. Release day of Rockin’ the Suburbs was officially over. In fact, the record was commercially DOA, like all other releases on that day (with the exceptions of every record Lee Greenwood ever made). Still, a failing album was not a big deal in the big picture on that terrible day.

  On the night of 9/11, we decided to drive out to find a hotel in the sticks somewhere in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, away from the big city centers, to call home to our families and make some decisions. Alan read me a list of artists who would be canceling their tours for the foreseeable future. “Let’s not add me to that list,” I told him. If there ever was a need for music, wasn’t it now? Band and crew, who were free to go home, agreed with me and elected to stay on. We would finish our tour, starting in Philadelphia the next day—my birthday.

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  It was tough to focus on music in that atmosphere, but I felt that when people came in off the street and into a concert, they should have a momentary respite from the tragedy and the uncertainty that had enveloped the world so quickly. Indeed, I spoke to a group of fans behind the venue who, just the day before, had been running from falling debris and a plume of smoke. A moment of music meant the world to them, and to me. Soon, as the sun rose on September 13, I would see the poor smoking island of Manhattan with my own eyes, as we passed on the Jersey Turnpike—the reflection of the teary faces of musicians and crew in the front lounge window is permanently etched in my memory.

  In October 2001, as soon as Lower Manhattan was open, I performed alone at a piano for the first time in my career, at the Bowery Ballroom. It was scary as hell, but by the middle
of the set, it felt right. I came offstage and told my booking agent that this would be my touring method for the foreseeable future—we could call it “Ben Folds and a Piano.” It would be a sustainable way to tour, given that the album was dead and the touring band was expensive. I told her I wanted to ditch the bus and scale down to a van, a soundman, and my trusty tour manager, Doug. We’d share the driving and do it old school. She warned me my career might never recover if I made such a move. I was nearly back to square one with unconvinced promoters, who’d just taken a bath on the last Ben Folds Five tour. Now was the time to prove myself again, she insisted. I needed a band. I could take risks later when I was back on my feet. She’s one of the best in the business because she’s nearly always right. But somehow, in these uncertain times, a sing-along solo piano tour felt like the “Church on Wheels” of rock clubs. Which is to say, it was a hit. Solo piano was what the doctor ordered. A loud band on tour in this tender environment would have felt like an assault, less intimate and less real.

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  Anyone who was in the United States in the wake of 9/11 might recall that, rising from the ashes of the tragedy, something magical was also happening. People suddenly acknowledged one another in the streets, smiled, opened doors, and helped with groceries. Everywhere. I think this is often overlooked. As I toured the country I saw a sense of community and humanity expressed that I hadn’t seen in my lifetime. Back at “square one” of my career, back in the small clubs, I discovered the storytelling inside my old songs and found the organic kernels hiding inside the large production of the recent Rockin’ the Suburbs material. I was reminded of the necessity of gatherings with singing and stories. Music’s healing power was on display for me nightly. I’d never heard people sing together quite like that. Remember when members of Congress spontaneously began singing together on the East Front steps of the Capitol? That actually happened on 9/11. Imagine that. My interest in group singing, college a cappella, and advocacy of music education was born out of all of this.

  One night in Champaign, Illinois, I was in the middle of the song “Not the Same” when I heard what sounded like a professional choir filling the venue. I looked up to see the choir, and it was the audience! They were singing perfect three-part harmony spontaneously. Each night after that, the audiences would sing those parts, unprompted, with varying degrees of success. I began helping that along, showing them the parts and conducting. It never gets old, hearing people sing like that, which is why it’s still a part of my show. I’d never imagined having audience participation as a staple of my act. I’d never been a fan of that overzealous singer shtick: “Sing, people! Come on! I can’t hear you! Sing!” I mean, you’ve paid for a show and now the performer up onstage wants you to do the work? But now I understood what the audience participation bit was all about. People wanted—and needed—to sing together. It was a brief moment in American history when people didn’t need to be reminded of basic kindness and humanity or to be prompted to sing in harmony together. Unfortunately, a little “shock and awe” later and that moment had passed. But I was in small rooms in every town across the land, and I will tell you that the intensity and warmth of people singing together is what I’ll never forget about 9/11.

  ROCK THIS BITCH!

  AT THE END OF MY shows on the Ben Folds and a Piano tour, half of the audience would often reconvene behind the venue. They knew I’d be there, loading up the van with my soundman or warming up our rental car. We’d all hang, snap a few pictures, and I’d sign stuff before we drove off, waving goodbye. It was a pretty informal affair, especially the signing of burned CDs of Rockin’ the Suburbs. I’d never signed blank CDs before, a technological sign of the times, but what the hell. My audience had always been particularly computer savvy, and I was philosophical (or maybe just lazy), about piracy.

  There’s no telling what the impact of the internet was on sales of that album. This was at the very beginning of the whole downloading thing. But this was not my battle. To be honest, aside from feeling badly for my friends who lost jobs in the music business, it seemed to me that the music business was just paying the piper for years of gluttony. Album and video budgets had been bloated for years, and execs had gaudy expense accounts. CD prices were particularly overblown, and kids knew it. Kids with computers. That’s who cut the business down to size.

  Anyway, the music business had had a pretty damn good run for a good fifty years. Technological advances had always been our friend before the internet. And the music biz had milked each new format to repackage and sell the same old classic records, over and over. Vinyl LPs, then 8-track tapes, then cassettes, CDs—they even took a swipe at selling it all again on mini-disc. How many formats of Dark Side of the Moon and The Eagles Greatest Hits did we all need? Indeed, the music business had come to believe that new technology = more prizes.

  But the newest format was a technological development that wasn’t quite so kind to the music business. Downloading, MP3, the elimination of physical distribution, was the end of the music business as we had known it. In truth, most artists didn’t actually profit directly from physical record sales back in “the music business as we had known it” era. I’m not sure that most of them who went to bat for their labels, lecturing fans about piracy, understood that. That doesn’t make it okay to steal music, but I wasn’t going to stick my neck out for the labels by chastising music fans. Especially when those music fans were spreading excitement about my music and coming to shows. It was a mixed bag.

  I don’t want to get too technical about the music industry, but just know that there are plenty of ways to make a buck in this business. Publishing, merchandising, touring, licensing, and, of course, selling your body to the night. But profit for the artist from actual direct record sales? Not so much. It was never the main way the artist made a living. Records cost so much to make and promote, and whether you agreed with label practices or not, it simply wasn’t where the money was, at least not for the artist. The labels were, after all, taking the risk.

  I didn’t want to spend time fighting when I could be creating, so I accepted what seemed to be an established fact. I’d just make my living on tour. Me work, me get paid. Liberated of all concerns related to the bottom line of album sales, I could deliver albums to the label that weren’t even in my contract, like EPs, specialty albums, and live albums. No need to fuss over recoupment. I could get on with my dream of littering the planet with my music, starting with a live solo piano record, Ben Folds Live.

  My new soundman, Marc Chevalier, captured as many shows as he could in early 2002 for the Ben Folds Live LP. We brought some fantastic tube pre-amps and compressors on tour. All that fancy fragile vintage equipment is not normal for live recording, but we only needed a few channels for a piano and a voice. Audio nerds might be interested to know that the front-of-house sound at these shows actually came through all of this exotic tube gear. We mic’d the audience as well, to document the singing on “Not the Same.” Of course, those mics picked up everything the audience said or did during the whole show.

  Ben Folds and a Piano tour, 2002

  “Rock this bitch!” someone shouted from the front of the audience as we were recording at the Vic Theatre in Chicago. I told this young man that I didn’t know the song “Rock This Bitch,” and I proceeded to make one up on the spot. The song was good enough to make it onto the album. This excited heckler had unwittingly launched a new tradition, because from that night on, someone always shouted, “Rock this bitch!” at my concerts, a cue for me to improvise a song. The rules developed spontaneously. Each “Rock This Bitch” (RTB) would be completely new, musically and lyrically, as long as somewhere in the song I sang, “Rock this bitch.” I have improvised an RTB at most shows since 2002.

  I’ve Rocked This Bitch solo; I’ve Rocked This Bitch with various touring bands and even with symphony orchestras. With orchestras I come up with the bones of a song quic
kly and then dictate some simple orchestration. It usually takes about ten minutes to get it together, but the process itself is of interest to the audience. They like hearing how the different parts of an orchestra function and how they come together. It also humanizes the symphony orchestra for pop audiences, seeing the players work through this unusual exercise.

  Thanks to that random dude who immortalized himself on my live album, I’ve gotten some unique on-the-job lessons in songwriting. Improvising RTBs at my concerts has given me a healthy new perspective on songs and how they are made, and what music is for. Freestyling in groups and making up songs, whether it’s on banjos or bongos, is ancient stuff. Temporary music. A celebration of the moment.

  We’re all here now! Yay! We had a day and it was tough, and it was wonderful, and here’s what the day sounds like. An interpretative dance of what now feels like. Our song will evaporate and expire like the day did, and there will be another tomorrow—another song. Let us then jam, motherfuckers!

  An RTB, like any freestyling, is an event, not a final product. Music that is highly crafted, considered, professionally performed and packaged is, of course, the norm—it’s modern music. We love that. But you can hijack this modern apparatus, the musicians, the technology, even a large audience, to celebrate a spontaneous moment and take a detour from the regularly scheduled program, to make up a song on the spot. Now, that’s exciting. It’s off-book, unplanned, unrehearsed, with no guarantees or safety net. It’s breaking the law!