“There Must Be Someone” (2021) – Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy * Written by Vern, Rex, and Cathy Gosdin * Album: Superwolves * Label: Drag City/Palace
You, too, would adopt a stage name with the carefree connotation of Bonnie “Prince” Billy if you enjoyed such longtime critical attention and TLC as Will Oldham. On Superwolves, he shares billing with producer/guitarist Matt Sweeney. Two standouts: 1) “Hall of Death, one of three songs to feature guitarist Mdou Moctar, but going even further by including an additional three Moctar bandmates, thereby vaccinating it with Nigerien Tuareg musical immunity; and 2) “There Must Be a Someone,” covering a 1968 Gosdin Brothers track wherein 4/4 is changed to an Otis Redding 6/8. Another tweak explodes the surface-level pathos in the song’s yearnings for love, acceptance, and friendship: Oldham sings, “Why can’t a man be accepted for what she has to be.” (The Gosdins, of course, went straight “he.”) It comes off, on one hand, as a gag, leading you to think that you now “get” the gender-confused singer’s self pity. Could Oldham be poking fun, along the way, at gender dysphoria icons Antony and the Johnstons and their “Hope There’s Someone” (2004)? Or is he being sincerely PC, on the other hand, and presenting the pronoun switch as fair play and/or food for thought? That the motivation is so unclear is probably what made it worth doing.