This month marks 30 years since David Berman’s slacker rock group Silver Jews burst on the scene with their debut album “Starlite Walker.” Lauded as one of the great songwriters of his generation, few could capture the human condition in musical form as well as Berman and the Jews.
Rewind to 1989 in Hoboken, New Jersey, when David Berman and his two roommates and former classmates from the University of Virginia, Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, began to record random jam sessions in their living room. Inspired by their shifts as security guards at the Whitney Museum and acid trips in Central Park, their music reflected the modern artistic sensibilities of their day matched with a respect for the country sounds of yonder.
As they began gearing up to release their first songs they tossed around a few potential names for the group like Walnut Falcon and Ectoslavia before settling on Silver Jews. Over the years many explanations have been given for the name. Some have cited it as an homage to the Beatles original band name “The Silver Beatles,” others have traced it back to a slang term for Jews with blonde hair.
Their early sound was often rough around the edges and without money for a studio session they would play their songs into answering machines for their friends.
Another hurdle the band faced was that they were initially seen as a side project to the more successful indie rock band Pavement, of which Malkmus and Nastanovich were both members. Silver Jews were so overshadowed that on the band’s first recordings, Berman listed Malkmus and Nastanovich under aliases to maintain the band’s individuality. But once people learned who “Hazel Figurine” and “Bobby N.” really were, there was no turning back.
However, as Berman’s lyrical prowess developed and matured, the band’s identity became distinct from Pavement. Silver Jews carved out a unique niche in the indie rock world, with a sound that merged alternative rock, alt-country and abstract, poetic lyrics.
David Berman was the driving force behind the Silver Jews. Unlike many indie bands of the time, Berman’s focus was on storytelling, combining introspective lyrics with wry humor. His writing tackled personal struggles, existential questions and observations of everyday life, all delivered with a deep, melancholic wit.
Although not overtly religious, Jewish imagery and motifs can be found scattered throughout Berman’s lyrics. His writing often delves into themes of exile, after-life, displacement and spiritual searching — concepts that resonate strongly with Jewish history and identity.
For example, on “Pet Politics,” Berman sings: “Adam was not the first man. For the Bible tells us so. There was one created before him, whose name we do not know. He also lives in the garden. But he had no mouth or eyes. One days Adam came to kill him and he died beneath these skies”
On the song “Like Like the the the Death,” Berman’s existential doubts are formed lyrically as: “Why is there something instead of nothing?”
Here, the sense of longing and a search for meaning are palpable, themes that can be linked to the Jewish concept of seeking identity and purpose in a world full of suffering.
While Berman’s Judaism wasn’t always the centerpiece of his work, the moral questioning, emphasis on redemption and struggle with faith present in his music often mirrored his complicated relationship with his heritage. This can be heard succinctly on the song “There Is A Place,” where the mantra of “I saw God’s shadow in the world,” is repeated throughout.
Berman attempted suicide in 2003, and in 2006, the typically reclusive Berman and the band decided to tap into their roots and film a documentary based around their trip to Israel during a period of crisis. The documentary “Silver Jew” shows Berman reflecting deeply on his spiritual and cultural roots, including his Jewish heritage, all with a backdrop of falling missiles and rockets in the heat of the Second Lebanon War.
The film provides a rare glimpse into Berman’s life, revealing his deeply introspective nature. The visit to Israel represented a turning point for Berman, who began to confront his Jewish identity more directly.
There’s a raw vulnerability in how the film portrays his struggle with reconciling his personal issues and his growing interest in the Jewish faith. “I experienced real acceptance there [in Israel],” he says in the film. “Everybody was so kind and opened their hearts to me.”
As the film nears its conclusion, with the band’s two performances out of the way, an Orthodox man invites Berman to wrap tefillin at the Western Wall. As Berman recites the prayer, he chokes up, his face reddens, his voice cracks and he begins to hyperventilate. David’s trembling voice reading the words of V’ahavta, the commandment to love God with all of one’s heart, soul and might, is agonizing. For a brief moment, it seems that David has been elevated to another plane of existence.
In an interview with Vulture in 2008 this is what Berman had to say about his Jewish journey: “As a kid growing up I always felt like a Jew. I felt like an outsider. [But] it’s just been in the last few years that I’ve been trying to figure out where I am with it. In a way “Silver Jews” has become a category for me of someone who’s a fellow traveler of the Jews.”
Following his illuminating trip to Israel, Berman became a student of Judaism, devouring the works of the great Jewish philosophers. “I had tried art and drugs and pleasure, and got to the end and found that there was nothing there,” he said in an interview with The Jewish Chronicle. “There was nothing at the end of rock music, and nothing at the end of drugs for sure. So I rejected life.” He continued: “Judaism is about making peace with life, so I felt as though I had given myself an answer.”
Silver Jews music is for the stranger, the wanderer, the vagabond, the refugee. Berman left us in 2019, as an outsider to the outsiders. Yet his spiritual poetry that encapsulates exactly what being a Jew truly is, will live on, and 30 years after he first launched his music project Silver Jews, their music remains life-affirming and meaningful to me and to many others.