Bonnie "Prince" Billy
I See A Darkness (1999)

Review by: Matthew Scrivner
Date: 6/1/03

Bonnie "Prince" Billy is one of the pseudonyms for Will Oldham, the lo-fi, alt-country genius behind the band Palace during the 90’s. This album is probably the bleakest, saddest, darkest collection of songs he’s done under his various names, and for me it was the hardest to find. I knew that I had to start digging though, after I heard Johnny Cash cover the title track from it on his American III: Solitary Man. Who could write such a bittersweet, disquieting song?

Sung by Oldham, the original version of "I See A Darkness" is far more chilling and melancholy than Cash, which is saying quite a bit. He's tapping into musical places that Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits never quite went deep enough to discover, and to be honest, it’s almost a little hard to take. True grief expressed this honestly and cleanly and openly is seldom heard.

If Tom Waits is the guy at the bar piano singing about getting drunk, Oldham is the guy passed out on the men's room floor. If Dylan is the guy sitting on a sunny street corner with a guitar and a harmonica singing about America, Oldham is the guy busking in the shivering darkness of the subway, waiting for a passerby to palm him the dollar-fare home. There are moments where he seems to be reaching into 19th century pub songs or sea chanteys, and others were the folk is pure, plain acoustic. There are places where he harmonizes with himself in a high, slightly off-key fashion that sends little shivers down your spine.

Why, you may ask, should you spend your money on an album that’s guaranteed to put you into a stupor of despair? Because it’s as beautiful as it is sad. Crushingly beautiful. It has a simplicity and honesty that you won’t get from most of the all-too-self-aware songwriters around these days. There are lots of sad songs out there – hell, there are entire sad genres – but I See A Darkness eclipses all of them until what’s left is the warm, glowing corona, burning out your eye-sockets as you stare in grieving disbelief.