Part 2.
You seem to be obsessed with the past. Actually one of the most striking aspects of the album is that Berlin, the city where it was recorded and where you've been living for more than six years now, is completely absent from both the music and the stories. All songs, even the more contemporary ones by Waits, Dylan and Michelle Shocked, are decidedly non-urban. Are you hopelessly nostalgic?
The countryside described in the songs is actually anything but pastoral. It's one of disaster, despair, death and damnation. Hardly a place you'd feel nostalgia for if you lived in a city. The reason I like American folk and country blues songs is that many of them have a sort of metaphorical and timeless quality to them. The stories told are very simple on the surface, but they're able to convey powerful emotions. Unlike some songwriter's complex lyrical explorations of his or her own individual tortured soul, these old songs - and new ones written in that vein - tell countless stories at the same time. Yours. Mine. That's because the landscape is open, free, ready to be written on. There are places to go, distances to cover. It's full of mystery and legends. The city doesn't lend itself that well to mythology. But don't worry, my next album will definitely sound more urban.
Mmmh ... interesting. But let's come back to this one. How did you choose the songs ?
Some of them I've been performing for quite a while, others I learned especially for the album, like the Tom Waits song, for example. The song list kept changing in the process of recording. I kept listening to my favourite records for help and inspiration, frequently discovering little gems that would fit the mood of the album. So I tried many more than the ones that are actually on there; some felt right with just me and my guitar, others didn't.
Like the title track?
Yes. That was originally meant for inclusion. "Another Man Done Gone" is the name of an old African-American field holler. It's actually quite well-known. It tells the story of a hanging, probably a lynching, witnessed by the singer. An extremely mournful tune, and unexpectedly hard to do. I struggled with it and eventually recorded a version with some guitar in the background, but wasn't satisfied with it. Since I ran out of recording time, I decided to drop it but still leave the album title the way it was. Like that, the song remains there as a kind of unspoken presence, a subtext to the other songs.
