We don’t deserve Jeffrey Lewis. Songwriting of this quality seems to belong in the halcyon days of the 1990s, when David Berman and Will Oldham were beginning to peak, or even in the distant and rarified climes of Greenwich Village in the 1960s. With that in mind, it’s fitting that The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis contains not only a song about Berman but also a not-so-subtle (and weirdly glorious) reference to Bob Dylan’s second album in its title and cover. As a standard-bearer for the New York anti-folk scene, Lewis has never been afraid to combine clever lyrics, sly asides and brash statements, and more than a quarter of a century into his recording career, he is showing no signs of slowing down.
The album’s cover – essentially a nude version of Dylan’s Freewheelin’ – is a good indication of what Lewis is about, at least on the surface. Funny, literate, soaked in pop culture, immediately accessible. But he’s much more than that, and if you want to get to know the real Jeffrey Lewis, then the song about Berman is a good place to start. DCB & ARS is much more than biography or hagiography. It tells of a partly imagined, crime-based friendship between Berman and the writer Amy Rose Spiegel. Yes, it’s funny and frothy, like a cutesy Natural Born Killers. But it’s also tender and twisty and, thanks in part to Mallory Feuer’s well-placed violin, not lacking in dramatic edge. Feuer’s violin takes centre stage on 100 Good Things, a live recording that does a bit more than it says on the tin: a list song that satirises lists but still manages to be positive.
Opener Do What Comes Natural is a typical Lewis narrative: so self-deprecating it’s practically self-annihilation. ‘If I did what comes natural I wouldn’t do nothing, I’d stick my head in an oven,’ he sings, and you believe him precisely because it’s delivered in such a throwaway manner, and because he’s been baring his soul so honestly for such a long time. But that’s not to say that he hasn’t matured. On Movie Date, he charts a relationship through his partner’s growing inability to stay awake through the duration of a film. Sometimes Life Hits You sounds like a post-Covid Crazy Horse, and comes to the conclusion that, after years of trying to be clever, sometimes saying ‘fuck’ is the only viable response to life’s problems. The lyrics hint at maturation and transcend their apparently childish delight in profanity, and this maturation is no fleeting thing: it is mirrored in the increased musical variety throughout the album. Lewis can still do punky DIY folk better than anyone, but now he can flesh it out with bluesy, grungy, garage rock or tuneful, jangly folk-pop.
The blues kicks in on Tylenol PM, where the Velvets or the Modern Lovers are channelled through medicated Mazzy Star tambourines and blissfully narcotic violins. Relaxation is a fuzzed-out garage rocker, full of Lewis’ trademark unexpected rhymes and featuring a guitar breakdown that sounds like it should accompany Peter Fonda dropping brown acid in a desert. Just Fun is the closest we get to the quick-fire, half-spoken, self-referential style that marked out much of Lewis’ earliest work. It only lasts for just over two minutes, but it packs in a whole bunch of emotions and even more ideas (Lewis is a successful comic book artist, and his knack for getting a lot of artistic and emotional detail into a small space seems to be a transferable skill). It’s the sort of song you listen to with a growing grin on your face, relishing its optimism and its wordplay, and only realise after it’s finished that it’s full of irony and sadness.
But even that doesn’t prepare you for the emotional hit of Inger, a heartbreaking, moving and ultimately hopeful character study that reads like a condensed version of one of Lewis’ most ambitious comics. It has a whole lot to say about independence and parenthood and grief. Closer, The Endless Unknown, contains a similar cracked beauty. Melancholic and achingly pretty with its swathes of violin, it sees Lewis tapping into the classic sad-pop of Lou Reed and splicing it with the gravitas of Leonard Cohen and the melodic nous of Ezra Furman. It’s the sound of a great songwriter getting older and using all his experience to his advantage without losing any of his anarchic humour or his ability to nail the human condition in pithy couplet. There hasn’t been anyone else quite like Jeffrey Lewis for a long while. It’s time he was recognised as one of the best lyricists of his generation, The Even More Freewheelin’ should do more than cement that status. All things being fair, it should go down as one of the best albums of his career.
The EVEN MORE Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis, due for release on 21st March on Blang Records (and Don Giovanni in the US). Pre-order album HERE
Jeffrey Lewis UK/EU Dates:
24th April – Hamburg, Molotow
25th April,. – Aalbourg, Studenterhuset
26th April – Copenhagen, Huset
27th April – Stockholm, Hus 7
28th April – Malmo, Plan B
29th April – Berlin, Lark
30th April – Stuttgart, Merlin
1st May – Germany, Cologne
2nd May – Germany, Haldern
3rd May – Arlon, Les Aralunaires
4th May – Utrecht, dB’s
5th May – Paris, Supersonic Records
6th May – Paris, Supersonic Records
7th May – London, The Dome
8th May – Leicester, The International
9th May – Cambridge, Storey’s Field
10th May – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
11th May – Glasgow, Room 2
12th May – Newcastle, Gosforth Civic Theatre
13th May – Sheffield, Yellow Arch Studios
14th May – Cardiff, The Gate
15th May – Bristol, Strange Brew
16th May – Margate, Where Else?
17th May – Brussels, Les Nuits Botanique