Ben Folds Five, Whatever And Ever Amen

By Jesse Roth

The end of every school year is always filled with a mix of emotions. There’s the excitement of finally being done with another grueling, possibly boring 180 days of state-sanctioned education. There’s a tinge of sadness that you may not see your friends for a whole three months, or possibly forever. And for some of us, there’s that mix of bitterness and angst that you feel in regards to your not-so-beloved alma mater and its denizens, briefly interrupted by daydreams of busting out and becoming someone other than some unknown dork hanging out in the hallways.

How does a person properly sum up these various feelings regarding the newly completed school year, other than trite yearbook quotes or lame pranks? For this awkward teen, it involved the passenger seat of mom’s car, my middle finger, and Ben Folds Five.

Starting with the end of eighth grade, I would commemorate the end of each school year by playing “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces,” the first track off of 1997’s Whatever and Ever Amen and one that seemed to perfectly encapsulate my desire to seek revenge through success on those I perceived to have shunned me during those awful teenage years. As the song blasted out the stereo of my mother’s car, I raised the appropriate hand gesture towards the building and shifted my focus to what I hoped would be a memorable, fun-filled summer (but rarely was).

Nevertheless, such summers (and countless lonely nights hanging out in my room) did provide me with the chance to explore the other amazing tracks of this album. Songs like “Smoke,” “The Battle of Who Could Care Less,” and “Selfless, Cold and Composed” allowed me to fantasize about the adult relationships that I wished I could experience, making me think I had insight on a topic I actually knew little about.

“Kate” and “Steven’s Last Night in Town” were fun, accessible tracks perfect for drives with my father (often while he searched for a new job in and around where we lived). And then there was “Evaporated,” a song whose emotion seemed to parallel the emptiness and confusion that enveloped me at times.

As the years went on, each track grew on me, the meanings changing as my life experiences began to add up. I began to really appreciate Folds’ humor, as well as his musical and lyrical talent, deciding somewhere along the way that Whatever might just be one of the few perfect albums in my collection.

Of course, such realizations regarding this album seemed to come in spurts. I was busy discovering other music in my teen years and on several occasions Whatever was simply another lonely disc case surrounded by other albums of varying levels of perfection. My desire to rediscover Folds’ talent every few months would always rescue it from neglect for a time, but eventually it would end up back in its place, waiting for another resurgence.

When one such desire came up about three years ago, I went into my collection to find the familiar purple case. . . only to leave empty-handed and confused. “Where is this disc?” I thought to myself as I tore about room and car, failing to properly remember the last time I had listened to it. Had I blasted it in the car for a Ben Folds-ignorant friend? Had I loaned it to someone? (This seemed impossible as I never seemed to loan anyone my CDs.) Had I, God forbid, lost it while moving the year before?

Nothing seemed to be registering in my mind. I hoped that it would simply turn up when I least expected it, like I’d been told everything in life does, since just replacing it would be akin to substituting a favorite childhood stuffed animal. After all, this very CD was just not a favorite album, but a representation of my developing musical taste and almost a decade’s worth of teenage confusion that I felt needed chronicling, even if my harsh memories of that time were now rather dulled by growing up and having bigger issues to worry about.

A year and a half ago, I finally caved. I simply missed Ben Folds’ and his music too much and felt that I needed several albums worth of it back in my life. While CD shopping with relatives, I decided to finally replace Whatever and Ever Amen, this time with an enhanced edition, which tacked on several songs to an album that had once so perfectly concluded with “Evaporated.” At first annoyed by this change, I eventually conceded that it was simply nice to be able to enjoy the songs that I had missed listening to for so long and simply remember those strange teenage years. . . and those many celebrations of unfounded school-based rage.