The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Ben Folds: ‘The Luckiest’ artist coheadlines with Violent Femmes
Sometimes things don’t go our way, and we never know why. But occasionally the reason is stunningly clear. That’s what happened with Ben Folds’ exquisite love song “The Luckiest.”
Originally written for a kissing scene in the romantic comedy “Loser,” from Amy Heckerling (“Clueless”), it was cut, along with the entire scene. But it made its way into Fold’s 2001 album, “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” and then landed exactly where it was meant to be — prominently featured in Richard Curtis’ endearing 2013 movie “About Time.”
“My relationship with that song is, I’m glad I wrote it because it kind of stands alone in my catalog as a song for something specific,” said Folds, who has performed with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras, and is also known for his highenergy rock shows.
While lots of his tunes have more of a “short story or short poem feeling” to them, Folds said, “The Luckiest” was “a slice of a moment.”
Clearly its proper home is in Curtis’ timetravel film about a guy who wants to fall in love and get things right with his soul mate (played by Rachel McAdams). The song’s initial rejection and afterlife are discussed in Folds’ new memoir, “A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons,” out this month.
Folds, whose genrebending music includes everything from his pop albums with Ben Folds Five to solo and collaborative records, coheadlines with folk punk band Violent Femmes at Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday, July 28. Folds shared more in a phone chat.
“I’m excited to see my fans,” said the artist, who tours with his own Yamaha piano and will be onstage with four other musicians (including a virtuoso harmonica player). “No videos, we stick to the music . ... Sometimes I’m a motor mouth (chatting with the crowd), sometimes I’m not. It depends on how it feels. You want to be in the moment.”
They’ll play a mix of new and old hits, speaking of which, there’s more to his story about “The Luckiest.” After the song was rejected from that first film, “it sat around for a while and I got suspicious about the third verse, I didn’t like it,” Folds said. While recording “Suburbs,” he was inspired to rewrite the ending after his 90yearold neighbor died in his sleep, and his wife passed days later.
“A lifelong partnership, like the one my elderly nextdoor neighbors had, was something we’d all be lucky to experience,” Folds says in his memoir.
That’s why the third verse became: “Next door there’s an old man who lived to his nineties and one day / Passed away in his sleep, / And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days, and passed away / I’m sorry I know that’s a strange way to tell you that I know we belong, / That I know / That I am, I am, I am, the luckiest.”
Folds said, “It’s not pretty, but it’s more real.” Lots of love songs are about promises that may or may not be kept, “but this is one where the circumstances resonated with me. I’m happy I wrote it and happy people connect with it. That was incredibly lucky that it didn’t go in the earlier movie.”