by
Lane Chasek
Detail from David Liebe Hart’s album cover art
If you were a weird kid (or adult) in the mid-2000s, you probably spent a lot of late nights watching Adult Swim. And if you were anything like me, you especially gravitated toward Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, which often featured a puppeteer/musician/raconteur named David Liebe Hart. David is an outsider artist and national treasure who deserves just as much national treasure status as the likes of Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen, and Andy Warhol. But since the universe is a cruel, unfair place, David is forced to work in relative obscurity. But relative obscurity is better than total obscurity, and in my experience, obscurity often fosters much more interesting work than mass-marketed fame ever could.
David’s latest album, The Wonderful World About Pigs, Horses & Clowns & Especially Dolly Parton, is currently for sale on both vinyl and digital. Many of this album’s best tracks are delightful Trojan horses which, while ostensibly informing listeners about topics such as banana milk, Dolly Parton, and clowns of the 1960s, hurl you into unexpected, often unnerving territory. “Bacon & Ham” describes David’s love of bacon and ham and how he could never transition to vegetarianism. This pork-based ballad lulls you into a false sense of security which is promptly shattered like an impatient child’s piggy bank when David launches into a story about when he saw a male pig mount a female poodle in West Boston. This coupling (allegedly) resulted in pig-poodle hybrids, and as the song ends you’re left wondering if these offspring would be hypoallergenic, as well as whether they would possess canine intelligence with porcine loyalty or porcine intelligence with canine loyalty. Similarly, “Science” is told through the perspective of a scientist who develops life-saving medicines, but quickly segues into David describing his own Christian Science faith and the doctrine of healing through prayer.
Hart’s specificity and tendency to fixate on topics such as aliens, ghosts, trains, and past flames is part of what gives his oeuvre that distinctive Hart charm. This often results in fans like me crawling through networks of rabbit holes in which I learn more about certain clowny sidekicks from Bozo’s Circus than I thought I’d ever want to know. If you’re someone who’s inquisitive to the point of obsessiveness, you may find Hart’s lyrics and subject matter to your liking.
If you’re a fan of outsider musicians like Daniel Johnston and Wesley Willis and have somehow never encountered David Liebe Hart, this would be a great album to start with. David and his producer Jonah also tour the U.S. and the U.K. from time to time (check their touring schedule for current dates), and if they happen to come to your city, definitely check them out. I had the opportunity to see David and Jonah live in 2018, and it was refreshing to meet a musician who was the same in-person as he was in all his songs and televised appearances.
Outsider music appeals to people because it defies the glitz and polish of the mainstream studio, making for a musical experience that’s not just human but defiantly human. Hart stands out from such performers as Johnston and Willis because of the simple joy and optimism that shines forth in many of his songs. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Johnston and Willis, but the adolescent angst and defeatism of Johnston and Willis’s tragic battle with schizophrenia leave you feeling pretty damn melancholy by the time you finish listening to any of their albums. Hart, though in many ways just as eccentric as Johnston and Willis were, possesses a lust for life and pretty women (both Earthling and extraterrestrial) that gives you hope that the world (and the galaxy as a whole) isn’t such a bad place after all.
Lane Chasek (@LChasek) is the author of the nonfiction book Hugo Ball and the Fate of the Universe, the poetry/prose collection A Cat is not a Dog, and two forthcoming chapbooks, Dad During Deer Season and this is why I can't have nice things. Lane's current pride and joy is an essay he published in Hobart about Lola Bunny and the latest Space Jam movie.