Gentle Ben

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By Newsweek Editors

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In his new collection, "Songbook," Nick Hornby devotes a chapter to the Ben Folds Five song "Smoke." Hornby calls it "one of the wisest songs about the slow death of a relationship that I know" and goes on to say it's "lyrically perfect ... it's also one of the very few songs that's thoughtful about the process of love rather than the object or subject. It was a constant companion at the end of my marriage." BEN FOLDS does that to people. He's the kind of artist who speaks passionately and bluntly about his pain (and his joys, and his obsessions, and his pet peeves), and he does it with a degree of maturity and artistry that makes his fans feel as though they've found the perfect musical expression for this or that emotion. "Smoke" is a track on "Whatever and Ever Amen," Folds's 1997 "Blood on the Tracks"-esque break-up album. Without even realizing it, that CD has been a soundtrack for my life more times than I care to remember. On its single, "Brick," Folds crafted an unlikely Top 40 hit about an abortion; on "Song for the Dumped," he created a gleeful romp with the childish refrain, "Give me my money back, you bitch / I want my money back / And don't forget to give me back my black T shirt." In the half decade since "Whatever" came out, Folds stopped playing with his ironically titled trio, the Ben Folds Five. In 2001, he released "Rocking the Suburbs," a superb album on which the multitalented Southerner plays every instrument. And for the last 12 months or so, Folds has been on a peripatetic "man and a piano" tour, for which he goes to Japan next month. The just-released CD, "Ben Folds Live," captures the best of these concert dates. The solo shows have been remarkable: rollicking, emotional rock concerts fueled by nothing but a dorky white guy and a Baldwin grand piano. "I'm much more comfortable playing by myself than with a band," Folds told NEWSWEEK from Nashville, Tenn., where he keeps a home. (For the last several years, Folds has lived in Australia with his wife.) "It's unique. People aren't used to sitting at a piano with no fanfare. It's much more personal." But the personal scope of Folds's music is mitigated-or augmented, depending on your view-by the heavy doses of humor and irony in his work. The cover of "Live" features Folds walking away from his piano, one palm pressed against his face, with the audience giving him the finger in unison. Unlike Elton John, another piano rocker (and one, incidentally, whom Folds covers on "Live" with a straight-up rendition of "Tiny Dancer"), Folds is never treacly. Even at his starkest, he maintains an ironic edge. Take "Live's" version of "Philosophy," a song infused with confused longing. "I see that there is evil / And I know that there is good," Folds sings, "and in the in-betweens I never understood." (Then he goes on to quote from the 1962 surf classic "Miserlou.") On "Rocking the Suburbs," the title track is a hysterical tale of pathetic white-boy hipster confusion while "Luckiest" is as poignant a love song as I can imagine being written. The Jan. 9 and 10 shows at New York's Beacon Theatre are the last stops on the American tour. "New York has always gotten what I've been about," Folds says. As for his next CD, he's got something different in mind. "One of the sounds I've got in my brain for this is a piano, an upright bass and drums-very traditional jazz sort of arrangements," he said. He's already spoken to a couple potential collaborators. "I've talked to [drummer and producer] Joey Waronker and Sebastian [Steinberg], the guy who played bass in Soul Coughing. So we'll see what comes of it." More immediately, Folds is planning an Australian tour with Ben Lee (the indie-rock phenom and Claire Danes's beau) and Ben Kweller, the 20-year-old rock sensation who was profiled in the New Yorker while still in high school. "We'll probably bring the Bens over to the States also," he said. His fans will be waiting, with their middle fingers extended.

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