Unnamed Subject Permeates Erik Daniel 's Mind

New album interrogates the life and relationships

Being Things is the new album by Erik Daniels. Released in February, it’s the second of his albums I’m reviewing. One of my concerns when I reviewed his 2022 album (Guilty Party) technical: the sound was not tuned all right, and I struggled hearing what he sang about. Things have improved this time.

‘Made for Us’ is the first song I listen to off the album. It starts with a guitar, and I smile as I listen to this guitar. The guitar plays for twenty-five seconds until the singing starts.

The soulful singing goes this way:

Everywhere that I wander to is dangerous

And every track that I step upon feels made for us

Of course, the rhyming set here is ‘dangerous’ and ‘made for us’

Erik Daniel does not tell the listener what these dangerous places are. Also, who is the other person he’s talking about – is it a lover?

The next line might give us a clue. It goes this way:

And whenever I’m feeling down, I take comfort laying in her breast

So, it must be a woman!

Later on, in the same song, Erik Daniel tells us that whenever the light gets dim, he looks at the sky until it gets blue.

Why does this happen, I ask myself. The sky turning blue has something to do with lying awake until the morning. This gotta be unhealthy – dangerous.

But he does tell us that whatever path they walk, being made for them, is made by them.

Later, he sings: ‘da da da da’.

Next up is ‘Out of Order’. This is a song that makes you feel like the guitar’s strings are pulling at your heart; a song that makes you want to take your guitar (if you have it); a song that makes you want to sing along.

On this song, Erik Daniel is content with the fact that life can be messy, but the big question he asks is:

Where does it say, we’ve only got today?

I think this song questions how life is supposed to be lived?

If the guitar on song number one and two sounded too cheery, the tune changes on ‘Oh My’, the third song off the album. ‘Oh My’ has a grungy, or pissed off, sound to it, and it’s an adventurous song instrumentally: the guitar, coupled with the piano, makes one alive.

It is time, it is long overdue

You know when we’re through

You’ll be waiting here too

Time for the next time

Again, here’s a song where you have to ask: who is the subject – is it a lover?

But then, we hear him tell us that he talks to himself:

Talking to myself, I hear all the same suggestions: take it slow

And then afterwards, he walks alone and hears footsteps:

Walking by myself, I hear footsteps getting louder

Oh my, he sings, how did he get into this? He didn’t think it through, he says.

A similar key – I’m talking about the piano – follows is to the albums fourth song, ‘Validation’. The key seems to say ‘ta-ta-ta ta-ta ta!’. It’s a happy song in terms of the instrument and melody. Lyric-wise, Erik Daniel is jaded on this song: time after time, he goes his own way, and lie after lie, he can see through them all.

In ‘Enough For Some’, the drum and guitar combo is cool, and the song talks about the positive things the narrator and subject do for each other. The narrator, it seems to me, keeps the subject warm with his words.

What game is being played on ‘All The Same’?

Every time we play this game, the rules are a moving target

This seems to be a complaint, but a complaint the narrator seems to forget later on:

Every time you say my name, I forget how all this got started

Then, there’s a question:

If I forget, will you tell me again?

If I forget, will you remember when?

And the subject of the song, Erik Daniel sings, communicates what he already knows.

If Erik Daniel had been singing slowly and softly up to this point in the album, he changes tempo on ‘Intuition’. He’s singing faster now.

‘Believing I Ever Could, Part 1’ is all drum and kick and no words.

Part two has lyrics:

‘I’m not alone here’, he sings, and then asks if he’s there at all?

It’s a question that really doesn’t matter, as we hear that he’s feeling something he hasn’t felt for so long. On this song, he doesn’t want the subject to let them go, and he doesn’t want to be let down either.

‘To All Concerned’ is all about trusting the future and succeeding.

‘Looking Out, Looking In’ is an interesting song title. It’s all instruments, no words.