DAVID MUNYON

„Code Name: Jumper“

(Los Hermanos, 1990 / Glitterhouse: 1993)

 

Sometimes those best records of all grow into their status with time. With others it is obvious right from the beginning that they will receive that status. “Code Name: Jumper” is the rare case of both at the same time. One of the best singer / songwriter-albums I have ever heard, filled with great and emotional songs about love and politics and life itself, but always retaining the same air of a world filled with spirits and with imponderabilites to keep you wondering and puzzled at the same time. The arrangements are to the point, using a whole range of countrified instruments, with every song rolling around the voice, the words and the melodies. Some might argue that other records by David Munyon are purer, more close to his “style” or less produced, and they might be true. “Code Name: Jumper” features full bands and even some studio musicians, who have worked with pop-artists that should rather stay nameless (and who are responsible for one or two unnecessary guitar-solos in the background), but lots of times, the first record you get to hear by an artist, the one that makes you fall in love with his songs and his style, is the one that means most to you. Am I right? This time, the love-affair started with a short flirt at the beginning – the song “Earl’s Song” on a compilation by Glitterhouse Records called “The Speed of the sound of loneliness”. Which made me check out the album it came from, which in turn made me buy every record by David Munyon I could get hold of. So there, that is why I chose this record for the list, simple as that.

Well, just like the songs of David Munyon, a lot of things that look simple on the surface are quite complex on the inside. Starting with Munyon himself, an surfer from Texas who became a Vietnam veteran (the title of the record “Code Name: Jumper” refers to his time in the army) and then turned a Buddhist who thanks god and Jesus Christ and all his angels in the thanks list; who travels the world detecting the small things that make this world so great; writing and singing his songs to everyone who might listen. A man who has obviously seen a lot in his life, pondered the meaning and complexities of life itself and found a sort of spiritual inner freedom that shines through his voice, melodies and songs. Even in the most desperate issues and times he will find peace and love in the small things, from the restaurant-owner who gives to the needful (“Everyday American Hero”) to the guy who confronts an army-tank with nothing but his bare hands in an urban riot for liberty and freedom (“Beijing Dreams”). These are also stories to behold and to be told, that will go straight to your heart and make you think about how to change the world yourself. A war-veteran has a different look upon life than someone who has never seen the senseless and meaningless killing and dying on a battlefield.

David Munyon has come away with an ideology of tolerance and peacefulness that is both inspiring and fascinating. In his songs the big differences between humans – race, religion, ideology – are overcome not by a healing hand or political integration from above, but rather by the “small” people themselves, who have to live next to and with each other. There is no difference on the small, neighbourhood-scale of life to keep people apart, because there they don’t exist. Only when the big politics and ideologies start to interfere, these things get hypertrophied into big issues. Like the Hebrew boy with “a Baptist, a catholic and a prince” in his clique, or the “hindu-christian-jew” who serves tea and philosophy. There are still a lot of problematic issues in the songs of David Munyon, he is no lunatic dreamer of a world full of peace and love. There are drug lords who commit acts of cruelty and murder without regret (“Maybe over the border”), the growing gap between the poor and the rich (“The other side of Harlem”) or the lonely vet-vet who can’t get over his experiences (“Earl’s song” and “Lost one, this is lost three, are you lost two?”[1]). Munyon is obviously no Hippie; if there is love and peace to be found in life then only on an individual basis. Lost dreams and the lost innocence of childhood (“Hey Benny”) reflect the growing up into a world that has turned into something cold and cruel. There is a lot of retrospection on lifes wasted (“me and this old suitcase”) on an individual basis or on a societal basis (“Just the waters rushing”) give the whole record another layer of importance, and make Munyon a songwriter with something to say.

But on top of all that is the music. Mostly gentle and distanced arrangements of traditional songwriter-instruments, sometimes reduced to just an acoustic guitar and a warm fretless bass, sometimes booming into full force with electric guitars and organs. The melodies are intricate and wandering around a theme without following a certain path, though never losing their destination. David Munyon has found his very own style of chord-changes and harmonies that make his songs so special to me. Try to play along to them and you’ll see what I mean. Moreover, there is that old, withered yet still soft and gentle voice, that vibrates experience and love in every syllable. Yes, love is the main message of the whole record, but not in a general hippie-way, but a love for the world as a whole situated in your own heart. Of course, that is close to the original gospel of Jesus Christ, if you chip away the monstrous creature the churches and priests have made of it. Without getting spiritual or religious, my one and only guiding principle is “don’t do unto others as you don’t want them to do to you” or “love your neighbour as yourself”. A utopian concept only to be reached when everyone adheres to it. Anarchy and Christianity all rolled into one and hard to realize and come by but definitely worth it.

I own a handful of other records by David Munyon, which are all great in their own special way. But “Code Name: Jumper” is the one that still grabs me the hardest and deepest emotionally and aesthetically. From the melodies to the stories he tells, which can still make me think about them and the issues and experiences involved a lot. (I have said before and I’ll stand up to it, that I’d rather listen to the real experiences of some grand, old man like Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark or Willie Nelson, than to the phantasized problems of teenagers with electric guitars and puberty aggression.) And of course his singing voice, which has the unique ability of making the emotions almost tangible and the stories come to life. Maybe David Munyon has started to write songs because it is easier to carry a guitar on the road than to write a book. In some ways he is more of a writer than a musician and I sure would like to read his book.

[1] These two songs are an interesting pair. They might be about personal experiences of David Munyon himself – a friend of his who can’t get over Vietnam (“Earl’s song”) and his own way of coping with the war (“Lost one, this is lost three, are you lost too?” – the title plays with a dialogue via radio between soldiers lost from their group). But they might also show the two sides of his own trauma – on the one hand the part of his personality that can’t get away from Canh Ranh Bay and the atrocities and meaninglessness of war, and the vet era veteran pride and being convinced of having done something good on the other hand. These two counterparts will never leave and keep on struggling against each other silently.
Coming up in this series: Hugo Race & True Spirit – „Last Frontier“, Kingmaker – „To Hell With Humdrum“, Arwelder  – “Push”, False Virgins – “Skin Job”, Yo La Tengo  – “Fakebook”, The Who – “The Kids are allright”, Blue Oyster Cult – “Fire of unknown origin”, Codeine – “Frigid Stars”, Colossamite – “All lingo's clamor”, Black Sabbath – “Paranoid”, amm.