The Gone Wait

Infobox Album |
Name = The Gone Wait
Type = Album
Artist = Jandek


Released = 2003
Recorded = 2003
Length = 39:54
Label = Corwood Industries
Producer = Jandek
Reviews =
*Allmusic (2/5) [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ubfxlfheacqi link]

Last album = "The Place"
(2003)
This album = "The Gone Wait" (2003)
Next album = "Shadow of Leaves"
(2004)

"The Gone Wait" is the 35th album by Jandek, and the first of two released in 2003 It is Corwood Industries release #0773, and is the first release to feature the artist accompanying himself on fretless electric bass, rather than on his usual acoustic or electric guitar. The album's title was also the name of a song on Jandek's 1993 release "Twelfth Apostle"

Overview

As The Place was a sequence of five songs, each using the definitive article ("the" picture, "the" place, etc) and featuring a cover that included mannequins in a storefront window, so does "The Gone Wait" mirror that with five tracks in the personal possessive ("I went to hell," "I found the right change," etc) and more mannequins from what may be the same foreign storefront window. The tracks are also linked thematically, continuing the "storyline" begun on I Threw You Away - that of an aging man regretting his life and offering Eastern philosophical advice to what is most likely a potential lover. But a few things have changed for this album, first and foremost being the instrumentation. Gone entirely is the guitar, replaced by an electric fretless bass, which is played simply but effectively.

Lyrically, this picks up again much where the prior album left off. The narrator has gone to hell, but, "then I went to heaven/can I catch you on your way to hell/take the life out of you." The narrator later says, "I got a chair and a carpet for you/but I don’t know where you live" - has she now fled her former lover? He also laments that, "I can't go with you when you die," and declares that "I was born into your loving arms." Jandek's repeated use of the phrase "we use our bodies to describe how we feel" may be the closest reference to sexual closeness he's given up to this point.

From there, as the bass rolls and tumbles behind the low, cracked vocals, the artist laments that he can't go back to "the place" (presumably the one from the previous album). Last time he said he'd lost the key, but now admits that he "sees the open door" but worries that "there'll never be a going back" if he opens it, apparently describing a fear of giving up the security of his lonesome existence. But he can still live in the remembrance of good times past ("I was a king when I was twelve"), and occasionally toss in a bit of humor ("hey diggety daggedy" begins the first verse of the last song). Ultimately, the narrator concludes that the best thing he can do is sit in his ornate front room and describe what goes on around him. That takes the storyline back to the idea that Jandek's talking not to a lover but rather about a lover to the listener, padding his thoughts with advice like, "I’m sitting in the front room/deciding what stays and what goes/when it’s all gone/if you don’t give up all your rights/you just pass along/Abandon everything you wanted."

Track listing

#"I Went To Hell" – 6:39
#"I See The Open Door" – 6:04
#"I Was A King" – 10:24
#"I Just Might Go Now" – 10:27
#"I Found The Right Chance" – 6:00

Reviews

Vocals and... bass! ...The instrument suits him. The low sounds are like a cool bath after the harsh high end of the last few.:— Seth Tisue "Jandek website"

External links

* [http://tisue.net/jandek/discog.html#0773 Seth Tisue's "The Gone Wait" review]