Fleeting Moments #1: Ben Folds – “Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hit His Head)”

Way to Normal (2008)

Welcome to a new feature at the Musicarium, “Fleeting Moments”. Here we’ll take a look at good individual songs from albums or even entire careers otherwise mediocre or awful. Often times, a usually dependable artist will release a shitty album that does have one good song or even part of one good song on it. Other times, a usually shitty artist will miraculously release a good song. I thought it would be interesting to find examples of this and write about them.

We begin with the opening track from Ben Folds’ 2008 album, Way to Normal. My review of the album was actually the first official post for the Musicarium back in December 2008 (and you can read that here). At the time, I listened to the record a couple of times, wasn’t terribly impressed by much of it, reviewed it and gave it a C-, and barely listened to it ever again. But there was one song I went back to time to time; the opening track, “Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hit His Head)”, a goofy tale about Folds falling off of the stage at a concert in Japan and the ensuing x-rays that resulted.

I had read many negative reviews of Way to Normal before I first heard it, but in listening to “Hiroshima”, the first song, I was delighted. Folds has released some legitimately brilliant material since the dissolution of Ben Folds Five. Rockin’ the Suburbs (2001) is fantastic from beginning to end, and Songs for Silverman (2005) has a multitude of strong moments that compensate for some unevenness. The negative press concerned me, and there were moments on Songs for Silverman and some of Folds’ five song EPs he released between 2003 and 2004 that were equal parts bewildering and embarrassing. But after hearing “Hiroshima”, I was confident that Way to Normal would be another winner.

Folds has been much more serious in his solo work than he was with Ben Folds Five. Much of Ben Folds Five’s output could be described as a frolicking, cheerful retelling of relationships gone bad and youth gone by the wayside. They rarely delved into serious remembrance or yearning (except, of course, for “Brick”, their biggest hit), choosing instead to be humorous bystanders to the sad sacks they sang about. Ben Folds Five was a great band because they sounded different, they wrote great songs, and they talked about the same shit everyone else talks about in a unique and entertaining voice.

When Folds moved away from that when he went solo, he became more ordinary. He was still writing some great music, but much of it didn’t feel special anymore. “Hiroshima”, however briefly, recaptures some of that self-deprecating charm. It’s big and bright, with memorable piano and simple chorus of Folds and a crowd yelling “Oh Oh Oh Oh” repeatedly. Folds singing about his mishap in Japan is sentimental, but stupidly so; and it sounds like something Ben Folds Five might have released.

I don’t mean to say that the song is only good because it sounds like Ben Folds Five. But in light of the rest of the largely putrid Way to Normal, in which Folds oscillates from “too sweet and too zany” to “too corny and wistful”, “Hiroshima” provides the only balance between those extremes and is thus the only truly good song on the album.

Listen to the song on YouTube.

John Lacey