Album Review

In preparation for this review, I went out to pick up a copy of Big Sur, the Jack Kerouac novel that inspired this collaboration by indie darlings Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard. At the local chain book store I searched alphabetically in the fiction section for Kerouac but came up empty, until I saw a small sticker on the shelf that said that those looking for works by Kerouac should go to customer service, which I did. It was at that point that a worker there said that they keep all of the author’s books behind the front counter; otherwise, people steal them.

I thought that this was a fascinating testament to the power that the Kerouac still holds some 40 years after his death. Big Sur was the first novel he wrote after On The Road made him famous. It’s a book about trying to get healthy by getting away from it all only to find that there are some demons that you can’t outrun.

On the album, One Fast Move Or I’m Gone, Farrar takes snippets from Big Sur, rearranges them a bit, and then adds the music. He asked Gibbard aboard to share the vocals. Kerouac, whose love of jazz worked its way into the rhythms of his writing, might be a bit surprised to find his work given the alt-country treatment that Farrar ladles on pretty much all of his music. Still, as Big Sur is a tad more contemplative than garden-variety Kerouac, it’s not a bad match.

What is problematic is that the author’s verbiage often resists scansion into the neat meters that the genre requires. Words dangle at the end of lines un-rhymed, and whole phrases seem to be shoehorned in without much regard for musical flow. More damaging are the times when the lyrics seem to be pulled together from different parts of Kerouac’s damaged psyche, leading to little coherency within a particular song. All of this isn’t criticism of the efforts of Farrar and Gibbard so much as recognition of the inherent difficulty of such a project.

Yet there are times when all of the disparate elements coalesce and create some truly moving songs. These moments usually come when the duo worries more about capturing the spirit of Big Sur rather than the exact wording. The opening song, “California Zephyr” is a gentle travelogue that hits all the high points of Kerouac’s journey but manages to subtly convey its wonder and loneliness. “Willamine” also does a nice job of nailing Kerouac’s complicated relationship with the girl in the title, as he turns from hopeful to despairing about their future on a dime.

It seems like the best numbers are the ones sung by Gibbard. I’m not sure if this is just the luck of the draw, or if it’s the fact that there is a natural ache in the voice of the Death Cab For Cutie frontman that fits the material better than Farrar’s deadpan drone. Indeed, Gibbard is on the mike for the standout title track, which lurches and lumbers like one of his band’s melancholy ballads. The song distills Kerouac’s woebegone prose beautifully, the one point on the album when all of the project’s experimental trappings fall away and you’re left with just a killer track that could stand proudly in the catalog of either one of these extremely successful musicians.

If nothing else, this album leaves you with some great Kerouac one-liners to chew on, like “These roads don’t move/You’re the one that moves” or “Nobody ever dares to write the true story of love,” cosmic truths that seemed to spill out of the author at every turn. I guess what I’m saying is that One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur might not be quite essential enough to steal, but the artistry of Farrar and Gibbard provide a few moments that might even have pulled Jack away from his beloved jazz, if only for a minute or two.

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