William Shatner
Has Been
Shout! Factory
On Has Been, Ben Folds and
William Shatner get together and art happens. It seems absurdly novel, but this isn't a first. Folds
gave Shatner a stage on his experimental Fear of Pop album, and the resulting
tracks ("In Love," "Still In Love") channeled Shatner's campy debut, 1968's The Transformed Man,
like it was still clinging to Billboard's nether regions. Soon after, Shatner got inked to his
infamous Priceline gig,
and Folds drummed along in the background during the beatnik TV spots.
This is Shatner's milieu these days — riffing about love and pain in a sort of slow-motion
white man's rap. It's strangely cool in the same way that old men with rhythm, nuclear catastrophe
safe rooms and pimped-out Oldsmobiles are cool: you admire them, but you wouldn't emulate them. In
a puzzle-piece match, Folds is cool in most other ways, and his collaborations with Shatner sound
sharp and infinitely repeatable. The union is anything but obvious. One man gave us "Give me my money
back, you bitch," the other "Lucy... in the sky... with DIAMONDS!"
Folds extracts a key quality from Shatner: vocalization, not the melodrama that
characterizes everything else Shatner touches. The notion of
Golden Throats,
another hideous musical mistake of the Captain Kirk era, was on target. Shatner fans are in love with him not
because of his acting craft, but because of the sound of his voice. "In Love" was a strong enough
delivery to merit an invite to perform on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Instead of breathy confusion, Folds pumps growly
invective and salient invitation out of Shatner, with promising returns.
Shatner immediately tabbed Folds to produce Has Been, the distant follow-up to Transformed
Man, and this album is stunning. To label it anything but — to call it "good," "bad,"
"a hit," "a bomb" — would disrespect the pair's creative output. Folds pushes
Shatner through an emotional journey, and their chronicle, which touches on love, life and death,
is on such genuine display that it demands appreciation free of a token value statement. The awe
inspired by this journey is emboldened by a "great" roster of all-star contributors (Henry Rollins,
Aimee Mann, Brad Paisley, Nick Hornby, Joe Jackson, et al.).
Of 11 tracks, Has Been's two radio-ready singles (a cover of Pulp's "Common People" and "Real")
bookend the album. Caleb Southern, producer of Ben Folds Five and Fear of Pop, had a knack for a
power openers ("One Angry Dwarf," "Jackson Cannery"). Folds takes this cue and fits "Common People" with a
quick prog beat, a Polyphonic Spree-caliber people's choir and a goosed Joe Jackson (a major Folds influence),
turning Pulp's plod into a manic race that can still be parlayed into bedroom banter.
"Real" closes the album with quality but little synergy; it's the I'm-just-an-actor piece Paisley penned
for the work by himself. It's a clean, potent tune, right in the Garth Brooks vein Paisley often explores, but
this isn't an album that needs such a donation. A Folds-Paisley or Paisley-Shatner work might sound
less crisp and acoustic, but it would lend Has Been character.
Has Been's middle nine tracks hang on to each other, arm in arm, as survivors of Shatner's
two-week brainstorm with Folds in Nashville, unbogged down with the careful editing and requisite
lead-in/lead-out that singles "Common People" and "Real" bear. With quirks like techno-keyboard fades and
fun with echoes, they hold together like a quilt: different swatches of fabric contributing to one unified work.
The songs leap across genres, sounding at some parts like OMC ("Together") and others like Strong Bad Sings
("Has Been"). Has Been provides Dean-o doo-wop ("Familiar Love") and a Rollins rant ("I Can't Get Behind
That"), stitched together into the fabric of the Transformed Man himself.
Two Has Been tracks are Grammy-nomination good. The first is "That's Me Trying," a
piece of fiction penned by Folds and Hornby (of High Fidelity fame). With Aimee Mann and Folds
on backup vocals, Shatner, as an awkward, estranged father, reads a letter trying to reconnect with his
daughter. (It's ironic because it was Shatner's daughter who united Shatner and Folds in the first place.)
The flatly fragile and vulnerable requests of the deadbeat dad over the patient piano tune are indomitable:
"I'd like to explain, but I can't/ So let's keep things neutral/ Stick to topics that won't bug us." Shatner's
father, trying in humiliating vein to find a connection, checks in with requests for "daughter-dad action" over
pizza and beer. The Hornby/Folds work jousts with Iron & Wine's
"Upward Over the Mountain" as the single
best portrayal by lyric of the past decade.
The other too-good track is the total opposite. Shatner ruminates about his drowned third wife, Nerine, in
"What Have You Done" placed square in the middle of the album. For all the
sonic wonder Folds imposes on the surrounding tracks, his decision to accent "Done" with nothing more
than a barely-there upright bass magnifies Shatner's vocals tenfold. This passage sinks you like a stone in a
river, whistling you to new depths as you realize the fullness of Shatner's emotional exposition. For
1:43, you are guest to Shatner's living nightmare, a track both earnest ("Is this what death looks like?") and explicit ("A finger in her throat sounded a click").
The song's closing lines deafen you with sadness: "You had said don't leave me/ And I begged you not
to leave me/ We did." William Shatner has entrusted the listener access to his most private self, the
one whose celebrity gets in the way of his peace ("It Hasn't Happened Yet") but loves his comeback
(in his words, "Has Been... might again"). He imparts live-like-you'll-die wisdom in "You'll Have Time"
and smirks wise about his lot in "I Can't Get Behind That": "Lifetime guarantee!/ Whose lifetime?/ Not mine/
I haven't that much time left/ Let's make it yours." This is how Has Been commands respect and
repeated listens. Shatner, a lightning rod of hubris, hasn't just opened the shades and allowed
us a glimpse inside. He and Folds have kicked open the door.
—
Andy Stilp
(andy.stilp at gmail dot com)
