Ben Folds Reveals Album Details, Unretires "Bitches Ain't Shit"
The last we heard from Ben Folds, he was at Bonnaroo with Amrit, premiering new tracks and retiring others. Since then, a Folds interview in Paste lets us know that the new album Way To Normal, the first since 2005's Songs For Silverman, is out 9/16 on Epic and that it was produced by Dennis Herring. In a Paste news story about the album we're also told:
Notable tracks include a quirky duet with Regina Spektor called "You Don't Know Me" and a glitchy sonic experiment called "Free Coffee" on which Folds gets a crackling faux-electronic effect by taping Altoids cans to the strings of his acoustic grand piano and running that sound through a distortion pedal.
The cheeky irreverence that's become Folds' trademark is still on full display in tunes like "Bitch Went Nuts," which tells the fictional story of a relationship that went south after the narrator's lover goes psycho and stabs his basketball. According to Folds, the song is a comment on the male perspective. "If you ask loads of women what went wrong in a relationship, they're going to give you a variety of answers. But you ask men, especially at a bar somewhere, and they're gonna go, 'Uh, bitch went nuts!'"
At Bonnaroo there was "Free Coffee" down to the Altoids container, video of that track along with other newbies "Errant Dog" and "Hiroshima," and the bad news (and, again, video to prove it) that TN served as the retirement home of Ben's cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit." Until Ben decided to sing it again.
Paste: How did your Glastonbury set go?Folds: It was pretty good. The only rain during the festival happened right before our set -- it just pissed down rain -- and stopped when the set finished. So, uh, that wasn't too cool, but it was pretty good.
Paste: Did you stay true to the oath you made onstage at Bonnaroo and keep "Bitches Ain't Shit" in retirement?
Folds: Oh no, we brought it out of retirement.
Paste: So it's now the Michael Jordan of your live set.
Folds: I mean, I was choked up when we retired "Bitches Ain't Shit" at Bonnaroo, but then to bring it out of retirement like that was somehow even more moving for me. Then it went back into retirement, and then we brought it out again last night. So it's been an emotional roller coaster.
Paste: Why did you retire it to begin with?
Folds: Well, the first time we retired it was actually a few nights before Bonnaroo. I just felt like we had played it enough. And then we were at Bonnaroo and I just looked out on the faces of all the children, and I just thought it wasn't fair that they didn't get to sing that. So, um, I brought it out of retirement for that. And then I felt like, when we played Glastonbury, I didn't want to give the children of America something that I didn't offer to the British kids too.
Paste: Understandable.
Folds: And then it's just sort of--and then it's just one thing leads to another and now we're in Germany and I felt like I need to bring it out too because I didn't want to offend the Germans.
Paste: You need to learn the song in German and actually deliver it in their native language.
Folds: Yeah, something about bitches and schlumpa, bitches and schlumpa.
I feel very white right now. Read the rest of the Q&A at Paste.
[Photo via Kerstenmarie]
Posted at 12:50 PM by brandon
Tags: Ben Folds
Ben has a loose definition of "retired" it seems. It's fine to keep playing it, but I don't know why he even bothered working everyone up with the last-time-ever spiel if he was so clearly uncommitted to the idea.
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ahahaha that was great
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Here’s my one post for the year, and I’m sure that’s more than fine with everyone. Folds truly seems like a bit of a douche. I can’t shake something I read about 5 or 6 years ago. It was in a magazine that was put out by CD World here in New Jersey. They would give a disc of 6-8 songs to a well known musician and ask them to write about it. Ben Folds listened and proceeded to lash out at every single track on there. He was all “learn to play your instruments” “you call that singing?” “is this even music?” and other obnoxious shit. What a prick. It is evident that no musician can approach greatness with such a closed mind. I guess that’s why his only decent tunes are on his breakthrough record when the bassist fuzzes out a little bit, oh and I guess the one Dre wrote for him is alright. Folds’s attitude blows and his music follows suit.
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There's no way to say this without me sounding like someone from the American Family Association, but Folds' swearing stopped being remotely funny years ago. "Hardy har, I wrote a song with 'bitch' in the title, you better look out, I'm gonna say 'fuck'!" I think he's genuinely talented when it comes to melodies, and when he can even write some decent lyrics when he acts like an adult rather than a moronic frat boy. I'm going to get downvoted for this, but it needed to be said.
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"Rockin the Suburbs" was an amazing album, save for the novelty title track. The "Songs for Silverman" (or, as I call it, "Sarah Silverman") was hit or mis. He needs to lose the comedy angle and just make straightforward songs and not try so hard to be wacky (ie that woefully unfunny fake suicide bit on his Live at MySpace DVD). Also, his live performances have become so overwhelmed by bullshit audience participation that they aren't even worth going to anymore. Ben's turning into Barenaked Ladies. Sheesh.
Ben, I love you, but please lose the schtick.
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You basically said everything I was trying to convey, but you said it much better and weren't a dick about it. Kudos.
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I have mixed feelings on Folds. Saw him once live and he puts on a pretty good show, but I agree, he has a rather immature infatuation with profanity that I found really annoying.
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so how do y'all feel about this "leak" of seemingly totally fake, but folds made tracks claiming to be "Way to Normal."
personally, i think folds is one of the best shows around. and really, seriously, out of all that he's written, count how many swear. very few actually do.
and that being said, someone referenced "Rockin the Suburbs" lyrics above, needs to do a bit more research onto the background of that song and how it's written as a parody, and isn't really all that serious. And the first song that actually has Bitch written in the title hasn't come out yet, but does in September.
And the times that I've met Ben Folds he's seemed like a really genuine humble man.
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first of all reinhold messner is probably the best album made in the last 100 years. It encompasses every genre, style, instrument, and feeling of the twentieth century. Folds is a goofball, a goofball that can write some honest and amazingly emotional songs, (brick, the luckiest, evaporated, don't change your plans, ..etc.) Just because he isn't serious all of the time doesn't make him immature. If he was as serious and solemn as his depressingly beautiful songs, he would probably kill himself like nick drake or elliot smith. You can't be immature and sing about your 16 year old's girlfriend's abortion and heartache without ever telling the media what the song is about. And for the people offended by his foul language....
.FUCK YOU! YOU UPTIGHT BITCHES AIN"T SHIT!!!!
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I met him on the streets of Nashville a few years back and he was incredibly gracious. He didn't act annoyed that I wanted a picture with him. Hell, he gave a little bow to me when we parted. Seemed like a great guy.
What saddens me is the way female characters are portrayed in pretty much every song except Don't Change Your Plans, Kate, The Luckiest, and Emaline. They're either helpless, untrue to themselves, total "bitches," or manipulative/controlling/life-sucking forces. In other words, they guy is pretty cynical about women.
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Sorry about the double post. Apparently I have a McCainian knowledge of technology.
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He's been married, like, 37 times or something, hasn't he? I wouldn't be surprised if he was a bit cynical about women. Not to say that's right or anything, but going through so many divorces can't be good for the psyche...
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