#67 "Falling" by Ben Kweller

Ben Kweller is one of those guys that I discovered because of his connection to someone else I like. I was looking at Napster one day ( ahhh... the wild days of illegal downloading!) and checking out what they had to offer for Evan Dando. Napster always had all kinds of crazy bootlegs, b-sides, and live recordings. I ended seeing some live song by Dando with this guy Ben Kweller. I listened to the song and kind of liked it and thought, "Who's this Kweller guy?" I found out that he had just released his first album "Sha Sha," so I got that and... well, here he is on The 300.

"Sha Sha" is this quirky little album that's a little bit of everything. You've got your faster rock songs, your inventive pop songs, and your more fragile numbers too. Kweller plays everything on the album, and the songs are filled with lots of strange sounds beyond your average guitar, bass, drums kind of thing. You can hear piano, xylophone, triangles, bells... all kinds of noises that add unique touches to the tunes. Kweller wasn't even 21 when he recorded it, and the record has this unassuming charm about it. I really really liked the album when I first got it and told so many of my friends and students to check it out. I made a lot of Ben Kweller fans out of them.

"Falling" is the last song on "Sha Sha." It's a cool musing on the idea of falling in love. Kweller turns the word around and repeatedly sings "I don't feel like I'm falling" since it's such a great feeling. I love his unabashed sentiment too when he sings "wanna hold you like never before 'cause we're falling and I love you more and more." That's part of what's so likeable about Ben's songwriting. He's very honest, but not real fancy about it, but has some creatively simple looks at life. A line from another song I liked is "I'm maxed out like a credit card." Kind of stupid, but effectively makes the point too. So check out Ben Kweller. His third album, the self-titled one, is fantastic!

"Falling" is from the album "Sha Sha." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.