Christopher Smith’s songs have that
timeless sound that makes you nostalgic for days gone by — days both
you and Smith alike are too young to have even known. The dreams and
reflections he relays in song were recorded almost exclusively in
bedrooms, a natural environment for such lovely reveries as these. With
a dreamlike intimacy, he sings love songs so soft and gentle they could
be adult lullabies.
Smith has always been driven to create beautiful things. Having
started out as a visual artist, his works were exhibited in galleries
throughout Vancouver before he had even finished high school. Since
leaving home Christopher’s creative focus has shifted to music. He
began spontaneously recording songs in the bedrooms and living rooms of
friends’ houses, each one only taking a few hours to complete.
This random collection came to be known as Lullabies for Crybabies.
The unreleased EP includes the first song Smith ever wrote, a 2-minute
youth anthem entitled “Children’s Song”. The tale of a city just for
children who live “in tree houses they built for themselves out of wood
glue and red cedar” is captivating in its simplicity. For all its
whispered beauty, there’s a dark undercurrent that runs through much of
Smith’s work, and it runs deep in “Samson Said.” The retelling of a
biblically dysfunctional and destructive relationship is one Smith says
with a laugh that he can relate to.
“There’s a level of romanticism to despera …
Christopher Smith’s songs have that
timeless sound that makes you nostalgic for days gone by — days both
you and Smith alike are too young to have even known. The dreams and
reflections he relays in song were recorded almost exclusively in
bedrooms, a natural environment for such lovely reveries as these. With
a dreamlike intimacy, he sings love songs so soft and gentle they could
be adult lullabies.
Smith has always been driven to create beautiful things. Having
started out as a visual artist, his works were exhibited in galleries
throughout Vancouver before he had even finished high school. Since
leaving home Christopher’s creative focus has shifted to music. He
began spontaneously recording songs in the bedrooms and living rooms of
friends’ houses, each one only taking a few hours to complete.
This random collection came to be known as Lullabies for Crybabies.
The unreleased EP includes the first song Smith ever wrote, a 2-minute
youth anthem entitled “Children’s Song”. The tale of a city just for
children who live “in tree houses they built for themselves out of wood
glue and red cedar” is captivating in its simplicity. For all its
whispered beauty, there’s a dark undercurrent that runs through much of
Smith’s work, and it runs deep in “Samson Said.” The retelling of a
biblically dysfunctional and destructive relationship is one Smith says
with a laugh that he can relate to.
“There’s a level of romanticism to desperate love songs because you
want to be desperately in love with someone — who wants a take it or
leave it love?”
This same all or nothing attitude could explain why after a
half-dozen years of making music in earnest, Smith is only now
releasing his debut. When work began on his first complete album,
Christopher retreated to his studio of choice – a bedroom. “I was
sitting on a bed the whole time,” he says, adding, “the vocals were
recorded in the bathroom.” Modest in execution, the resulting
recording, The Beckon Call, is a hushed and intimate affair.
“Gently Gently”
begins with whimsical, layered vocals and guitars that build and then,
like a veil being lifted, quickly drop away into a sad and simple love
song telling of the dilemma faced as a relationship comes to a close;
one of disenchantment, and an unwillingness to simply let it die.
At times naively sentimental, the songs that make up The Beckon Call
are full of insecurity and failure. Rudderless, Smith sings of
surrender and this is far more real and true and romantic than any
saccharine love song could ever hope to be. Smith understands beyond
his years what Nick Cave meant in saying “The love song is a sad song,
it is the sound of sorrow itself.”
With a sigh, “Two Strawberries in a Jam” lists off the things one
loves about another, in the hope that perhaps some day this admiration
could be requited. The melancholy and vulnerability of the song can be
summed up by the album’s title. A beckon call is in itself a hopeful
invitation; opening oneself up for deliverance from solitude.
As truly beautiful as these songs are, their depth is forged in
vulnerability and grief. Some love is ephemeral. Paper chains may bind
us but are easily broken. Some loves are a burden worth carrying. We
lose ourselves. But without getting lost, how would we ever know we
want to be found?
