Day One
Ordinary Man
Astralwerks
2000
There was a green and yellow plaid short-sleeved collared shirt that I wore everyday. It was on sale at Macy’s, and I bought it with my own money. That was the only shirt I wore because that’s all the money I had. Also, I didn’t know there was a hip vintage clothing store just 2 blocks down State Street. I didn’t know there was a cool place to buy clothes. I found my ugly green and yellow shirt by myself. I was no longer concerned with trying to make friends. I didn’t care how I looked. But I was comfortable.
Brandon Schiffman played one song in his car on the way back from somewhere. At the time, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard. One guy practically speaking over a mid-tempo, poor-man’s drum loop, a little bass, and a riffing acoustic guitar. The lyrics were so impacted, the rhymes so repetitive, like Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” but not like that at all. It was like it was all coming off the top of his head, and the words just seemed to fit together. And then the chorus, “I’m just waiting for my break.” Who isn’t, I thought. As I got out of the car, I had the rhythm of all the rhymes stuck in my head. It was like hip-hop, but not at all. There was nothing tough or showy about it. Just a guy walking along, telling a story.
I found a promo copy on the shelf at the store (out for sale, of course). I put it in the CD player and was at once satisfied. I replayed the first track several times before moving on, just to pick up some of the lines. “Said he was an actor/ Bit of a photoGRAPHer/ But made his living out of laughter/ Which made him a comedian.” By the end of the song, this guy was so many things: actor, photographer, comedian, painter (“He saw the self-hate/ In his self-portrait”), musician, model (“But the only trouble / Was he didn’t like the idea/ Of getting photographed in swimwear”), entrepreneur (“He’s starting up a business / Before next Christmas”), soul searcher (“That had no religion/ But still went to confession”), and free-spirit (“Though he doesn’t appear it / Living in a bedsit / With no fire exit”), and after all of this, he’s still waiting for a chance to show his stuff.
It was a disregard for the cool, an ease in storytelling and wit that made Ordinary Man an instant favorite. Day One walked me through the banality of city life as I imagined it in my quasi-resort surroundings. “Walk Now, Talk Now” describes a night beginning with a fabulous party that our hero didn’t want to go to (“I’d been drinking red wine and talking arty”) and the difficulty of trying to get home, relying on public transportation, ending up at his girl’s place, getting into an argument over the circularity of their sex life, and leaving her, only to arrive back at the same party he’d left earlier.
“Trying Too Hard” opens with our hero recognizing a woman who had flirted with him before. He tells her he’s ready (“You said we could hook up sometime, maybe/ Now’s as good a time as any”) and she is swift to reject him (“I don’t mean to offend you/ But you’re not quite how I remembered you”). He goes on to run the gamut of social personae (“So I tried to play it sexy and hurt/ She said I came across as an introvert / So I changed to being a deep and profound/ Until she asked me if I was feeling down / And when I told her that I was well read ”), only to ultimately be rejected yet again (“She looked at me and just said/ You’re trying too hard but keep trying”). Of course, she calls him two months later, after getting stiffed by another guy, to which he replies that he’s already got a girl.
After setting up the flow of beats and rhythms, Day One manage to surprise with the poignant closing title track. The piano ballad, with a little splattering of acoustic guitar, closes Ordinary Man on a sweet, self-deprecating note. Our hero croons, “And if I had style/ Then I/ Wouldn’t have to look down when she walked by.”
The songs were complete narratives without the often unnecessary details (“my name is”/ “I’m from…”). Each song told of a man who was not only unwilling to change to fit in, but simply unable to. I stood behind the counter in my green and yellow plaid shirt and hit the PLAY button one more time. That night, I threw a couple bucks into the cash register and took that CD home. I have since ripped it to a hard drive, put it on the iPod, etc. The actual disc is currently sitting in a box in a garage in California, right next to that plaid shirt. It’s the kind of thing some people might cringe at if you were to take it out and put it on, but it’s OK to like what you like.
Listen: Day One- “Waiting For A Break”
