The Brothers Buffett

Don't you just want to punch him?

So I’m here on the verge of my next song, frantically seeking inspiration, and finding Somewhere Over China waiting for me.

It’s a desperate place to be. I feel like a cornered animal.

Let me help you out here. My favorite song on this album, “Where’s the Party,” simultaneously evokes the M*A*S*H theme (yes, “Suicide is Painless”) and Rick Astley’s “Together Forever.” And while I’m not entirely disappointed by that, because both of those songs are rad (Jimmy’s is, let’s say, less rad), that’s the level of stimulation I’m dealing with here. Suicide and Rick Astley. Together. Forever.

I don’t know how Jimmy does it. The whole album, like everything else he’s done lately, is a giant mélange. Somewhere… features everything from Original Jimmy honky-tonk mixed with (yet another) 80s-theme electric piano (the not very good but also not very offensive “If I Could Just Get It Down On Paper”); to mock-Duran Duran in “It’s Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet”; to a poor carbon copy of Michael McDonald-era Doobie Brothers with “Lip Service”; and then to a countrified ballad combined with — of course — Chinese hammered dulcimers and gongs for the title track.

I know I say this every album, but I really mean it this time: Somewhere Over China is… nowhere close to good. I’ve tried to listen to these songs every which way and, well, none of them are going to stick. At least not musically.

Now somewhere in my stomach

Because: the best parts of Somewhere Over China though are the impossibly specific, only-in-1982 lyrics. These are little nuggets of magic sprinkled throughout the album — as Jimmy might say, like pockets of pork inside a steamed bun.

Here, in “Where’s the Party,” Jimmy indignantly tosses on his headphones:

I could stay here all night long
Wait for her to call
Or I could put my walkman on
And never care at all

It’s awesome. “Walkman” just leaps out at you as you’re listening. It’s like what today’s songs about Twitter and smiley-faces and estrogen hormone replacement are going to be like in twenty years.

But then we find in “Lip Service” that Jimmy’s not an early-adopter. Doesn’t sound like he’s going to upgrade to the Discman when it comes out in a year. He, uh, lovingly imparts to his gal:

Your bitchin’ and your cryin’ finally got to me
So I thought I’d take you baby on a shoppin’ spree
You bought a space age watch and an antique hat
Hell now it’s digital this and digital that

And then, finally  – I cannot make this up, nor tie it in any way to the rest of this post — in “Somewhere Over China,” apropos of absolutely nothing the space shuttle appears.

How I would love to drive the shuttle
Just to feel the engines roar
And to operate the levers
That control the payload doors
I could buzz the Himalayas
Barrel roll above Hong Kong
Set her down in San Francisco
To the clangin’ of the gong

I’m trying here. But that’s more than I can say for Jimmy with Somewhere... We are at the phone-it-in stage (perhaps the car-phone-it-in stage) of JB’s career, and I fear very much that it lasts for a while. Or, forever.

But, speaking of phoning it in, I’ve got crappy songs of my own to produce. And it looks like I have some encouragement from Somewhere Over China after all:

• Do anything.
• Write lyrics quickly. Preferably, high.
• When in doubt: go modern. Then: move on.

I’m also going to add a gong. LOL

My song ratings from iTunes:

A “3″ means I would be okay hearing the song again.

Average iTunes Rating: 1.78

Where’s the Party [3]
It’s Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet [2]
I Heard I Was in Town [2]
Somewhere Over China [1]
When Salome Plays the Drum [1]
Lip Service [2]
If I Could Just Get It Down on Paper [2]
Steamer [2]
On a Slow Boat to China [1]

Pork bun picture courtesy of Flickr user avlxyz.