Graduation Day: Singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur

The video for “This Is Still My World” (which juxtaposes the poignant lyric “I could cry for you forever” with the blunt “And besides you make me nervous”), a track from The Graduation Ceremony.

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

Joseph Arthur writes exquisite love songs, and his new The Graduation Ceremony, an apparent breakup album (maybe I’m going out a limb saying that, but since that phrase is the title of the first track, I think it’s OK), puts me in mind of both Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love (though the sting of his marital breakup must have been salved by his affair with now-wife Patti Scialfa, who sang the haunting backup vocals) and the fictional recording Juliet, in Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked. In that novel, rock fanatics were still deconstructing the work 20 years after its singer-songwriter creator had disappeared into Middle America.

Let’s hope the latter never happens to Arthur, who in the track “Midwest” declares, “There’s nothin’ to do in the Midwest but dream.” Being from rural Missouri, I was struck by the delicacy of the line—somehow it seemed not about putting down a region (all too common; pardon me if I’m sensitive) but about appreciating youthful yearnings.

In New York, where Arthur makes his home, it’s a different story; here he spins his dreams into both songs and paintings. Although his Dumbo-based gallery, the Museum of Modern Arthur (cute), closed, the museum still exists as a Web site, and the Gershwin Hotel in NYC is currently (through June 30th) hosting an exhibition of Arthur’s work, which tends toward alien-looking creatures in what has been called an “abstract sprawl.” During a VanityFair.com interview a few years ago, Arthur told me that when writing songs, he likes to think about them “in a painterly way” to feel more emboldened. (He also said that he thought living healthily was “punk rock right now,” but I’m not sure Johnny Rotten would agree.)

Live, Joseph Arthur (friends call him Jo) can be magical. The calm at the center of a storm of lush sounds—like Theresa Andersson, he’s a master of pedals and loops—he’s somewhat mysterious. You could imagine him as a tall, long-haired figure wearing a cape and wandering on the heath or the sand or even among clouds or stars. Or at the Living Room on NYC’s Lower East Side, where you can join him during his 10-day residency starting tonight. I know I’ll be there to hear his beautiful songs of heartbreak.