Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Wow, what an opening line: "Will Oldham's contributions to the American songbook have maintained a steady, scraggly, sublime output since the early '90s." Logically, what Jonah Flicker seems to have meant was that Will Oldham has maintained a steady-etc. output since the early '90s. What the sentence does say is that the songs themselves have maintained that output--in other words, that they write themselves. This means Will Oldham cannot be held responsible for his own songs--which, as someone who's heard a few of them can attest, must be a tremendous relief.