Saint with an acoustic guitar

When I made my transition
I want everyone to know
I only changed position
I was only frozen sky anyway

(Jonathan Richman, “Only Frozen Sky Anyway”)

How is the whole original? Rock and Roll generation is slowly leaving this world, the farewell albums that round off the careers of great masters become almost new genre. From them we can learn many wisdoms that have only been hinted at until now, which have accumulated in the meantime in the experience of the greatest.

In the case of Jonathan Richman - and his first studio release in four years - establishing a relationship with that special moment of passing to the other side is the theme that preoccupies him in the cycle of songs from the current album Only Frozen Sky Anyway. But who knows Jonathan, knows how much it is given with warm humor that pleads that nothing in the world should be taken too seriously, especially us.

Jonathan Richman (b. 1951, Boston) is an unusual and special figure in the history of rock and roll. He appeared as early as 1971/1972, with the group "Modern Lovers" to chart the future direction in a visionary way. new wave to go, when he announced his existence in the second half of the seventies. Their self-titled debut produced by John Cale (multi-instrumentalist from "The Velvet Underground", a band he always admired) is certainly one of the best in history, but no one heard it until 1976, when it was finally released. Songs such as the legendary "Roadrunner" (covered by "Sex Pistols" and many others), and "Pablo Picasso", "Astral Plane" or "She Cracked", formulated a new view of things, which later musicians were abundantly inspired by: it was the view of an innocent man, amazed at what the modern world has turned into.

If we add to that that Jonathan Richman has maintained his childlike innocence to this day, functioning for decades as an antithesis to any cynicism and arrogance, it is clear that in his quiet way he opened up the possibility for each of us to - by associating with him and his art - preserve his inner naivety and kindness. It is enough for him to start making us laugh with his stories from his life (slice of life), in which he mostly narrates how he doesn't find his way in it at all, and you begin to be filled with inner warmth and complicit sympathy, because you recognize all your own inadequacies in Jonathan. His emotional confessions through stripped-down, simple acoustic compositions are dazzlingly sharp and often reach such a level of openness that they test you - as if asking how much honesty can you still endure?

So we have it on the album. Only Frozen Sky Anyway, with the delicate accompaniment of longtime collaborators Jerry Harrison and Tommy Larkins, Jonathan offers his retold first-hand experiences, events and situations that happened to us, or most certainly could have happened exactly as he described. Let's take for example the track "That Older Girl", in which our hero, walking in the snow after elementary school, meets a girl he likes, but Sneško Belić tells him that it won't work because she's a year older than him, and he doesn't even know that it won't work and why?! Or, a completely unexpected, beautiful ballad cover (with completely changed lyrics) of the hit "Night Fever" - by disco giants such as the "Bee Gees" - in which we find Jonathan standing on a corner in a big European city in the evening and wondering if we can spend at least one Saturday night not judging other people - what they are like, how they are dressed and where they are going - but just enjoy the evening? "But We Might Try Weird Stuff", with enticing female backing vocals, is about the unnamed bodily pleasures we can always fantasize about, and there's no doubt that Jonathan, like all normal people, still likes to fantasize (instead of browsing the Internet).

The title track, which opens the album, brings us a crystal clear experience of his own inexorable end, with which Jonathan is also at joking peace, so he tells us, never declaring his place in the world more clearly: "When I make my transition, I want everyone to know that I just changed position, I was just a piece of the frozen sky anyway". In the end, he surprises us once again, emerging from this narrative from the end of earthly existence with his version of the spiritual composition "The Wavelet" and the continuation of "I Am the Sky", authored by Paramahansa Yogananda, the first great Indian guru who reached the West between the two world wars. These two miniatures leave us truly invigorated in a way we have hardly experienced.

In the context of rock and roll history, with his disarming philanthropy, Jonathan Richman is, without a doubt, an unrecognized saint.