Joshua James

Build Me This

(Intelligent Noise)

Record Review by Amber Henson

I’ve recently been thinking about how much acquaintanceship can affect people’s feelings.  That is to say, even if I don’t know you, but we have met, I’m likely more inclined to help you than a total stranger.  Or, if there are two sides to a story, one’s more likely to side with the one they heard first (or at least this is behavior I’ve noticed in myself).  Perhaps it’s not fair, but it’s human nature, to some extent.

So after hearing “In the Middle”, a track off of Joshua James’ Build Me This, I began to think about how, to really feel for the singer of this song, you have to be on his side.  The song is about a man who is wondering if his ex will ever come back to him, meet him in "the middle," and how she is now that she’s with a new guy.  And from the side of the singer, it’s sad.  He still calls her Love, he still clearly cares for her.  But I turned it around, and realized the song is strange from the point of view of the new guy.  He’s with this girl now, and there’s some guy writing songs about her.  That’s just awkward.

Most of the album didn’t inspire such mutinous thoughts for me.  Build Me This is sad, intellectual, and spiritual.  Much of the time I feel like there are themes I’m missing for my lack of folk music history and my lack of bible reading.  There are some strong threads that run throughout the album, such as race, vulnerability, and pain.  James seems to have some sort of cut obsession, like he’s worried about knives.  It makes for some interesting lyrics.

James is a young, white kid from Nebraska, but there’s something about his voice that kept reminding me of Michael Jackson.  I can’t explain why, exactly, it’s not that they necessarily sound similar. Maybe it was the same vocalization of pain that they are (were) both able to express. 

This album also reminds me of something a friend of mine recommended about reading Slyvia Plath, “Only read it if you’re in a good mood.  Otherwise, it makes things so much worse.”  Build Me This is definitely the kind of album you’d find yourself pulling off the shelf shortly after a breakup, not to make yourself feel better, but to wallow in the sadness.  I listened to it out in the winter sunshine on a good day, and it still managed to make me question some of humanity’s motives.  The album’s great tracks are worth it, but watch out.