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The unlikely collaboration between London novelist Nick Hornby and pianist Ben Folds from North Carolina began with admiration from afar. Folds used to read Hornby's books, such as High Fidelity and About a Boy, when on tour. Then, in 2002, Hornby published an essay collection,
31 Songs, in which he enthused at length about some of his favourite music.
Smoke, a lush break-up song by Folds's goofily named former trio, Ben Folds Five, was in there alongside Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road and Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker. Hornby wrote of Folds's song: “His words wouldn't look so good written down, but he has range, an amused eye for lovestruck detail, and he makes jokes — but not in the choruses, crucially, because he knows that the best way to wreck a joke is to repeat it seven times in three minutes.” He went on to call the song “lyrically perfect”.
This prompted Folds to get in touch and confess that, in fact, he hadn't written those particular lyrics. So began a friendship that has slowly become a working relationship. The pair wrote the track That's Me Trying for another strange Folds project, a 2004 album by Star Trek's William Shatner.
Now they're going steady, about to release Lonely Avenue, a full album of songs featuring Hornby's lyrics and Folds's music. They fit beautifully together, in part because Hornby leaves the singing to the expert.
Its rare to find a dedicated lyricist today, when rock bands get black marks unless they do everything themselves, and even the most plastic pop stars insist that they “co-write” all their songs. We're more familiar with lyricists in the world of musicals — such as Tim Rice or Ira Gershwin — while Elton John's wordsmith, Bernie Taupin, is probably the best known in contemporary music. Then there's Doc Pomus, the bearded, wheelchair-bound writer of the words to Sixties hits such as Sweets for My Sweet and Viva Las Vegas, whose tale Hornby tells on a song named after him: “He was mad as hell, frightened and bitter/And found a way to make his feelings pay”.
So if someone is able to concentrate solely on the lyrics, will the end product be more impressive? Hornby's name on the album sleeve certainly makes us listen more closely to the lines that Folds sings.
The musician has said that the lyrics were the most important thing on this album, not something you hear often from those who handle both words and music. “Sometimes all it really needed was one chord and two notes and that was going to bring the lyrics out and move people the most. I'm serving the lyrics so I had to take myself out of it,” he says.
Hornby fans will recognise the tone immediately. These aren't poems, they're short stories, packed with fictional characters whose situations are described in easy-to-follow language. “Rainbows, daffodils, she's not naïve/Symbolism's all crap”, Folds sings on the ballad Picture Window, about a woman who has to watch the fireworks of New Year's Eve from a hospital window. With other songwriters, the temptation is to inspect the lyrics for personal details — but you won't learn anything about Hornby's life here.
Instead you'll meet Claire, on the beautiful standout track Claire's Ninth, who has to celebrate her birthday with her separated parents. It was the first short story Hornby ever wrote. Then there's the dumb good old boy on the raucous Levi Johnston's Blues: “I'm a fuckin' redneck, I live to hang out with the boys/Play some hockey, do some fishing and kill some moose”. Somewhat closer to home is the struggling musician of Working Day: “Some guy on the net thinks I suck, and he should know/He's got his
own blog”.
It's all good fun, with some touching moments. The only line that might provoke a wince is on Saskia Hamilton —“No hard consonants in my girl Saskia/Every single syllable sounds like Shakespia” — but Folds gives the music such vibrant energy that it sweeps you along anyway.
As a former record store employee and rock critic, Hornby probably has a better understanding of what makes a good song line than most authors. This isn't likely to be the start of a trend, much as I'd love to hear Bret Easton Ellis teaming up with Kylie. And as long as supreme lyricists Bob Dylan and Nick Cave are still operating, the pinnacle of rock expression will still be the musician who does it all.
Lonely Avenue is released by Nonesuch on September 27.
