By: Matt Fink
Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen—that’s about it for the writers who can dominate a song simply through words. While he may never reach quite the renown as those three, there’s no denying that Dan Bejar’s most exceptional gift is literary, as he has issued album after album of sprawling word pictures that read more like surrealist short stories than pop songs. With Trouble in Dreams, Bejar has created his most dazzling lyrical work.
“I've never wanted to say anything in particular,” he admits. “I just, on every single level, love slinging words that become music, which is how you know if they suck or if they are good. I think this is a pretty good rule to stand by.”
Bejar, who usually writes about people, places and relationships, tapped into other realms for Trouble, mainly the two that are on everybody else’s minds: politics and religion. “There are a couple allusions to political torture [on this record], which I think is a first. And at least one, maybe more, religious moments that then disappear, but not in that ‘religious rhetoric’ kind of way that I think Destroyer songs have played around with for ages. I think this time it's more serious—serious meaning not just following the roads that language leads you down. I don't think I can really explain it, which should shock no one.”
Bejar wrote the record in Spain while reading Spanish and Russian poetry. The highfalutin influence resulted in otherworldly narratives that are explained through symbols (like Yeats!) then echoed through ambient tones alongside Bejar’s woozy purr.
“[I] had the idea of singing like Sinatra,” he says. “That fell through again. And all my overdubs were going to be simple harmonica parts heavily, heavily reverbed. I was calling it ‘dream’ harmonica. I ended up chickening out and doing guitar solos instead.” Bejar also imagined himself recording the album live on the floor. That didn’t happen either. “And that's fine,” he says dryly. “I don't put much stock in ideas.”
