I admit it, today is the first day I've ever heard Biff Rose. I've finally (sigh) gotten to listen to all the records I bought in New Zealand and have had Rose's Children of Light on repeat for several hours.American comedian, singer-songwriter, painter, and as all the bios say "left-wing hippie," Biff Rose sounds more like British music hall than anything I can imagine coming out of this country, which would explain why Bowie covered "Fill Your Heart" on Hunky Dory and why the patron saint of clever pop, Van Dyck Parks, appears on the first track.

I've been really digging two songs, the rollicking satire on upstart Christian churches, "Evolution," which features a neurotic falsetto so similar to that of Brother Daniel that it seems early Famile albums are mere creationist revisions of Rose. The other song is the end of side A, "Son In Moon." Sadly, no one knows what to do with a sincere moment of a prankster, but as someone who was once emo enough to have a personal blog with the subtitle "cynicism hides a waiting heart" (oh god), I'm not unfamiliar with romantic disappointment as a subtext behind humor, just the sort of thing that makes "Son In Moon" a good song. This song is pure musical, the piano swelling and cascading in bigtime rubato along with Kirby Johnson's strings while Rose's rough, high tenor warbles for the high notes, but without the Andy Kaufmaneque sense that the sound is meant embarass the audience. It is just amateur (and not incidentally I've been listening to Sarah Brightman for work purposes and so Rose's grit appeals to me after her bland hyper-pro facelessness. Anyone who thinks she's goth should meet my 19 year old self in a dark alley). This is the kind of song where the pianist helps milk the important words through subtle flow in and out of time - Rose is a master of it, but still retains that ineffable sense of grounding (perhaps just cuz he has the flophouse voice) that serves the song without letting it slip into sacchrarin paralysis.I'm really in love with thefirst four lines of the song and especially the first two - a drawn out stutter that serves to illustrate Rose's position so well. The singer knows but I don't, he is so nervous that he just can't get out. "Yes I knew, I knew it all along/ yes I did, yes I knew that I would hurt you," a tumult followed with a quick rhyme then rephrased and inverted so that by the end of the fourth line he's already on to empathy - a sign that his love was not as deep as the other's "Throw away my precious virtue, and really hurt you/ and know the hurt you really feel just being you." Something about that final way he phrased it, "the hurt you really feel just being you" seems a bit haughty, but the crybreak renders that potential a bit flat upon listen. Okay I'll admit it - there's something so ridiculous about Rose's inept voice singing an obvious belter that I am endeared more than I would be were he capable - a classic punk pop paradox.

Maybe I'm losing my mind or even worse, getting older. I've been listening to a lot of Rufus Wainright too, mostly because his "Going To A Town" was at the top of my 2007 lists. I feel like I might have to spend a few hours listening to the Southern Lord catalog to balance myself out.