When David Berman ended his rock band Silver Jews, in 2009, he announced it on his record label’s website, writing, “I’ve got to move on. Can’t be like all the careerists doncha know,” and “I always said we would stop before we got bad.” It was painful, but not shocking. He sang of “chemical dependencies” and smoking “the gel off a fentanyl patch” years before the opioid crisis hit the front pages of newspapers. In speaking publicly about his 2003 suicide attempt, he also revealed his struggles with addiction and mental illness. Yet as much as he sang about addiction and depression, the humor in his lyrics gave the despair room to breathe. If listeners found succor in Berman’s testimonies from the wrong side of a Saturday night, they also found grace in his elegant observations. I dare you to hear the words “the jagged skyline of car keys” and see your city the same way again.

After posting about the end of Silver Jews, Berman also published a confession, titled “My Father, My Attack Dog,” revealing that he was Richard “Dr. Evil” Berman’s son. “I went off to hide in art and academia. I fled through this art portal for twenty years. In the mean time my Dad started a very very bad company called Berman and Company,” Berman wrote. He called his alcohol industry-lobbyist father “a despicable man.” With Silver Jews over, Berman vowed to bring his father’s exploits to light. He was reportedly in talks with HBO about his father, but ultimately declined the network’s offer, fearing it would turn his father into a likable antihero. 

Berman was plagued with self-consciousness and an impulse to quit rather than risk mediocrity. Though Silver Jews released their first single in 1992, they didn’t tour until 2005. People compliment lyricists by comparing their lyrics to poetry, but Berman actually studied poetry under James Tate at the University of Massachusetts, and released a book of poetry, Actual Air (Open City), in 1999. Despite publishing a smattering of poems afterward, Berman soon walked away from poetry and never published a follow-up. 

In 2014 Berman’s mother died and he wrote “I Loved Being My Mother’s Son,” the first song he’d completed in years. Ever since Berman disbanded Silver Jews, there had been rumors of a comeback, usually started by sometime Silver Jew and long-time friend of Berman’s, Bob Nastanovich—best known as Pavement’s percussionist and hype man. Asked why he started these rumors, Nastanovich said, “I do it to keep things bubbling like a refreshing spritz of seltzer. He’s not a good self-promoter. He’s a poet and songwriter, not a business man.” 

Berman scrapped a 2017 attempt at making a record...