Interstellar Discussion, Part Eight

Why Did I Change A Word In The Last Song?

Artists who value their privacy do not frequently generate as much mystique about their persona as Jandek; indeed, it is not merely his lack of contact with the media or his fans that puzzles fans, but the content and presentation of his work, as well. Three puzzles that Jandek fans discuss frequently on the mailing list are the numbering of the Jandek catalog, the order in which the catalog was recorded, and who the other musicians are who appear on Jandek recordings. Lyrical content and musical styles of the albums give only enough clues to provide further questions and no answers. The three of these debates, and obviously the search for the true identity of Jandek, compose Jandek’s endlessly deferred narrative. While Hills argues that the creator of the text perpetuates the narrative, Jandek fans have taken his text and created their own myths.

Jandek’s oeuvre is not without a full cast of characters. In addition to lyrical allusions to persons named Max, Jenny, Ezekiel and Phillip, his catalog includes a ten-year period in which he is joined by several additional musicians. Based on the tracks, “Nancy Sings,” “John Plays Drums,” and “Down at the Ballpark” (which features the line, “take it, Eddie”), these additional musicians during the ‘band era’ have all been referred to by these respective names. Though Nancy only appears on about four albums in this period, she is commonly accepted as the subject of all of Jandek’s love songs. In 1999, in response to Jandek’s recent release New Town (1998), Tim wrote:

I think the title song refers to Nancy. I think Nancy moved to Madison (reference: "Rain in Madison" off of "[Glad] to Get Away [(1994)]". Jandek goes to Madison and sits in his car outside Nancy's house) and this is what he means by "you're living in the new town.”
- Tim, mailing list, June 8, 1999

Based on these lyrical ‘clues,’ fans on the mailing list have extended their public records searches to look for Nancys in the Madison and Northeast (Jandek sings about Point Judith, Rhode Island on Six and Six (1981)).

Jandek’s lyrics are, more often than not, quite depressing and heavy. Fans often attribute a large portion of this unhappiness to a relationship with Nancy gone awry, though she only appears for several years and one style of music in the Jandek catalog. Tisue’s site has compiled a list of Jandek lyrical themes, which includes numbers, rivers and Spain, love, and depression. A large number of album titles also appear as lyrics in preceding albums. In his first album alone, ‘staring at the cellophane,’ ‘chair beside a window,’ ‘somebody in the snow,’ and ‘follow your footsteps’ are all lines that will later become the titles to albums.

The aesthetic continuity of the photographs on the cover of Jandek’s albums provokes questions about their chronological order, as well as the contexts in which they were taken. As previously mentioned, the majority of cover art depicts Jandek in various stages of his life. Several covers, Modern Dances (1987) and Blue Corpse (1987) were obviously taken on the same day, most likely one after the other. One fan wrote about the cover art, “Does anyone think that the pictures of the covers could be arriving in some sort of cycle or arrangement that continues itself within different themes?” (mailing list, January 24, 2001). Years later, the discussion comes up again; fans wonder who is taking the cover photos, as they are obviously ‘snapshots’ and not professional photography.

One fan attempts to construct a theory of Jandek’s life based on these photographs, in which a wife took all of the younger photographs of him (these appear on covers until about 1998), and then the photos that begin to appear depicting Jandek in Europe, obviously aged, signal to fans that he has divorced (Ivan; mailing list, June 30, 2004). Seth Tisue presents a collage of Jandek cover photos on his website that he feels are an accurately chronological representation.
A second discourse about the cover art began in 2004 with the release of Shadow Of Leaves. After one of the users posted that it looked as if the cover art had been altered in Photoshop, members almost uniformly agreed. Writes Ivan, who proposes the alterations:

I had a look at this and it seems that the path over Jandek's left shoulder is largely a photoshop creation. Some of it is quite hard to locate in the rest of the picture, but I've marked all the obvious areas that repeat. The parts that aren't marked feature so much repetition it looks like it's covering stuff up too. Also the leaves in that path are bigger than the ones in the other path.
- Ivan, mailing list, June 26, 2004

Responses to this post referred back to Katy Vine’s article, in which Jandek admitted that he did not use computers (Vine 1999:96). Fans cited this as evidence until one user distinguished between the identity of creator and person: “Maybe ‘Jandek’ doesn’t use computers, but ‘Sterling Smith’ does” (Tim; mailing list, June 27, 2004). The theory about Photoshopping continues into the present. The cover for Jandek’s Khartoum Variations (2006) shows Jandek in front of a castle; a fan posted in late April of 2006 that Jandek had been superimposed upon the castle, despite having the knowledge that one of Jandek’s live performances took place only several miles away.

The first Jandek release, Ready For the House (1978), was released with the catalog number 0739; logically, every release since has increased by one integer. In all nine years of the mailing list, fans continually discuss what might have motivated Corwood to begin the catalog at 0739 instead of 0001, or any other number. Circulating theories are that the numbers corresponded to Jandek’s birthday, the numbers were part of Jandek’s address, or that ‘0739’ was where the tape counter was set when Jandek first began recording. A fan who wrote Corwood with the question received the ominous reply: ‘NO SPECIAL REASON/ WE DON’T KNOW WHY/ START 0739’ (mailing list, October 5, 2004).

The numerical theme continues beyond the cataloging of albums. Several of Jandek’s songs, in particular ‘European Jewel,’ ‘Message To The Clerk,’ and ‘River to Madrid’ have been recorded in several forms; other lyrics reappear in different songs, and some melodies take on new lyrics. Rerecorded versions of songs are often followed by a number, furthering the myth about the significance of numbers. ‘European Jewel (Incomplete),’ originally appearing on Ready For the House, appears three times on The Rocks Crumble (1983), titled ‘European Jewel II,’ ‘European Jewel 613,’ and ‘European Jewel 501’. These titles reinforce the theory of some fans that 0739, the beginning of the Corwood catalog, corresponds to the number on the tape counter when Jandek started recording. This theory, however, directly conflicts with the debate about when albums were recorded.

Few Jandek fans assume that Jandek’s records were released as they were recorded, and therefore also believe that they have not been released in the order that they were recorded. In early correspondence with Irwin Chusid, Jandek claimed to have about ten albums already recorded; this number has now been increased to 30 on mailing list discussions, though I am not quite sure when this first occurred. After three acoustic albums, Nancy and John first appear on Chair Beside A Window (1982) and Your Turn To Fall (1983), respectively, however they each only appear on one track on the album. The ‘garage rock’ albums begin in 1982 and continue through 1985, until a brief relapse into acoustic music. Telegraph Melts (1986) returns to this electric phase, beginning Jandek’s ‘lounge’ period. A guest male vocalist (fans believe it to be Eddie, the second guitarist) appears on 1987’s Modern Dances and Blue Corpse, and Nancy sings on quite a few albums between 1988 and 1992’s Lose Cause. The blistering final track on Lost Cause, ‘The Electric End,’ is a startling 20-minute whoop-and-holler session between two guitarists, a drummer, and who knows what else. True to form, this is Jandek’s last track of the ‘band’ sessions.

After ‘The Electric End,’ Jandek’s output returned back to his acoustic style reminiscent of his albums released in the early 1980s, so much so that many fans believe these albums to have been recorded during the same period. The Beginning (1999) marks the end of this period with a first-ever piano-only piece. Following The Beginning is the biggest anomaly in the Jandek catalog: the a capella phase. Put My Dream On This Planet (2000) shocked listeners not only because it was an entirely spoken-word album, but it was also recorded on what appears to be a voice-activated recorder with fidelity similar to that of a telephone. Jandek’s voice rambles on for three tracks, two of which are each nearly 30 minutes long, in what Byron Coley likens to ‘creepy messages left on your answering machine’ (Jandek On Corwood, 2003). The album sounds strange enough that one poster, William, likened it to electronic voice phenomenon, in which ‘ghosts’ appear on the static of running tape (mailing list, March 6, 2001). After three a capella albums, Jandek returned to his guitar-and-vocal format of the past. On the a capella albums and all subsequent releases, Jandek’s voice appeared to have aged significantly in comparison to The Beginning and all prior releases, contributing to the theory that albums were not recorded as released. The a capella album’s low fidelity also contrasted with the increasing quality of other studio recordings.

Jandek’s catalog is not without a sense humor. The song, ‘Why Did I Change A Word In The Last Song,’ off of Interstellar Discussion (1984) follows the track, ‘Hey,’ in which the title comprises the only lyric in the song. ‘Om,’ from Somebody in the Snow (1990) appears to be a parody of Gregorian chant. ‘Mother’s Day Card,’ from Telegraph Melts (1986) can best be described as a Hallmark Card adapted to the style of a traditional drinking song. Banter throughout the electric phase presents Jandek goofing off with his collaborators.

During the late 1990s and into the release of Put My Dream On This Planet, Jandek albums went out of print and slowly began to reappear, remastered. Though all of the albums have been reissued to date, Jandek is still re-remastering them and re-reissuing them. Each reissue is sent to Seth Tisue accompanied by the following note: ‘remastered [year given] – all other editions obsolete’. Track times on reissues tend to be longer, extending the gaps between songs. Newer reissues also carry UPC barcodes, a first for Jandek. In the transition from vinyl to CD formation, Jandek also edited and remastered a significant amount of the back catalog; lines from a Frank Zappa song at the beginning of a track were removed, as was an instance where Jandek appeared to knock into his microphone accidentally.

The a capella phase is too creepy to go without a sample. Here's 'You Wake Up Deadmen,' from Worthless Recluse (2001)