Released by ANTI, (Real Artists Creating Great Recordings On Their Own Terms) Danny Cohen’s “We’re All Gunna Die” is his funereal follow-up to his 2004 album “Dannyland”. 1930’s heartthrob Errol Sprague (AKA Danny Cohen) produced “We’re All Gunna Die”. Sprague takes credit for writing the sixteen Memorials of this record while Cohen was busy watching his ‘stories’ – “One Life To Live”, perhaps? When lazy bum Cohen plays - quote unquote – live, the hardworking Sprague claims that it is really himself who is singing. Anyway. Not surprisingly, death is the topic du jour of “We’re All Gunna Die” (emphasis on gun.) with song titles such as “Funeral In New Orleans”, “Ghost Country Safari” and, of course, title track “We’re All Gunna Die”. However, the rest of Cohen’s soliloquies pay their respects in a more oblique fashion: “Caffeine & Sunlight” follows the slow, painful death of hope, dreamlike “Magritte” remembers the long ago death of innocence, “Among The Cows” sheds a tear for the death of the 60’s and so on. The potential gravity of this record is casually swept aside by Cohen’s odd one-liners. For instance, Cohen quotes the Wicked Witch’s famous “I’m melting” line during the closing credits of “World Of Holograms”. The final words of “We’re All Gunna Die” (song and album) are equally touching: “Close the door damn it, we’re recording!”
What’s to be made of the odd one-liners and the overall old-timey-Blues-singer-cursed-by-a-voodoo-witch-doctor-to-play-eternally-at-the-Disneyland-Haunted-Mansion vibe? Were these songs of death written before Cohen & Co. started recording? Or maybe Cohen is, in his own “Ghost Country Safari” words, “Making these words up as I go along.” It could very well be the latter or most likely a combination of the two since, reportedly, two of the musicians who played on this album were diagnosed with malignant cancer. One of them passed away.
Odd one-liners, misogynistic asides, imitations of farm animals and occasional belches aside, Danny Cohen is a fine storyteller - very unique, very unusual; always following his subjects, unpleasant and bizarre as they may be, down their respective unbeaten paths. Take “Cousin Guy” - everyone has a “Cousin Guy”. He’s the one whose parents are first cousins and keep him as a slave. Eventually he gets a job at Disneyland, saving enough money to run away to Israel. Naively, he tries to lead a normal life with the help of Thorazine. He manages to keep his room clean, but can’t outrun the past - eventually losing his mind in Africa, of course. How chic.
In “World Of Holograms” Cohen sings, “You don’t know who I am/won’t you listen to me?” He’s so right and yes, intent listening occurred here. All the songs on this prolific album contain genuine emotions. Bitter and misguided as they are, they nakedly reveal Cohen’s heartless weirdness mixed with obsessive sentimentality. ANTI is the perfect halfway house for Cohen as he is a true original – a real artist creating a great recording on his own terms. |