Duncan Sheik - Whisper House
Pop chamber music to soothe a broken soul
There are moments in your life when pain becomes a companion. For most of us, hopefully, it happens later when we’ve been through enough and developed enough relationships that we can weather those storms. But, even then, the pain is real and often excruciating.
In the late oughts, my father died. He had been sick for a while, but he was only 67. He was the life of any party and someone I was almost closer to as a friend than a parent. It was the first real close relative I lost setting aside my grandparents who passed in 2002, but for whom the wounds were not as deep - they were not my parents, obviously, and were in their 90’s, having lived very long and good lives.
I spent the better part of a month in my bedroom with the shades drawn. Friends would deliver food and I tried to work, but as someone who had only a couple years prior also gone through a divorce, this was tough.
While in the depths of my sadness, I came across Whisper House, the sixth studio album from singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik. Most know him from his hit single “Barely Breathing” that filled adult contemporary airwaves in the mid-1990’s. But, he his best work would come on records like Humming (I’ll get to that one somewhere down the line) and in the Tony Award-winning musicals Spring Awakening.
I was already enamored with Shiek’s music and had seen him live, but this album was a bit of a departure for him…and me.
Music Before the Musical
Whisper House was written as a musical. I’ll confess I didn’t even realize it was made into a musical in 2020 until I did some research for this post. The New York Times liked it, but given it’s release - January 2020 - I’m guessing it had a limited run.
Because it was written that way, it felt almost like a concept album with songs in order of appearance telling a full story of a young boy sent to live with his aunt in a creepy old lighthouse populated only by a caretaker - a former Japanese fighter pilot - and a bunch of g-g-g-g-ghosts (Insert Scooby Doo sound here).
The little boy has lost his father to the war and his mother to mental illness. He is alone in the world surrounded by strangers who mostly seem put out by his presence, including the ghosts.
If this sounds sad, it is. It doesn’t help that the music bed is a beautiful if dark palette of guitar, bass and drums mixed with chamber instruments like cello and viola. The music sounds small and compacted like forced into a tiny room and it’s absolutely lovely.
Ever the Spiritualist
Sheik is an actively practicing Buddhist and those beliefs come across in all his music, albeit subtly. It’s more like a gentle nudge into beliefs that are as secularly humanist as they are spiritual in many instances.
On this record, the idea of ghosts speaking to a young boy and trying to teach him something about love and loss feels a bit like a reincarnation even if it isn’t in this context.
Some of the lyrics, I believe, were written his writing partner, Kyle Jarrow, who also contributed to the book for the musical. But, the overriding themes are distinctly Duncan (which sounds like a ‘90s sitcom).
Song after song, with Sheik singing and accompanied at times by Holly Brook, digs deeper into the sadness of death and loneliness, but like all things he wrote about, there was always something positive to glean, a silver lining to be taken away from all the pain, which is why it really hit home for me in that moment.
Act One
There really is a wonderful progression to this album, which makes sense given its destiny as a musical. But, I remain stuck on Act I even to this day. Not to say the second act isn’t terrific - it is - but the first half of the record just gutted me at the time…and still does.
The opener, “Better to Be Dead,” introduces the people in the story, including young Christopher, his Aunt Lilly, caretaker Yashuhiro, and even the sheriff, who is described as, “something of a sideshow, every sheriff is the same.” I mean, that’s just true in every film or TV show, right? The ghosts tell the story of how everyone is miserable and they’d honestly be better off on the other side like them.
With a driving beat, it’s more uplifting than you might think and more than a little sarcastic at times. But Lilly’s portrayal is perhaps the most somber - “She’s afraid of the unknown/She’s no ray of sunshine, so mostly she’s alone./No one cares about her longings or the dreams on which she’s fed.”
Song two, if not for “Earthbound Starlight” (I’ll get to that), would likely be the “single” if this were a traditional album. “We’re Here To Tell You” is an up-tempo rock song explaining who these ghosts are and how all those things that frighten you are real - werewolves, demons:
We are here to tell you
Ghosts are here for good
If this doesn't terrify you
It should, it should
It’s just a really good song, layered and full of sonic interest, but with the most straight ahead rock groove on the album.
By song four, we are deeper into the story telling with a parable about a man named Solomon Snell, who didn’t trust anyone and with good reason. He was screwed over by everyone even in death. The number is almost vaudvillian in its musical structure with added haunting background vocals. It’s a cautionary tale wrapped in a rather jaunty little package.
I Won’t Dry Your Eyes
Then we get to “Earthbound Starlight,” the waltz-tempoed heart-wrung ballad that speaks honesty, maybe for the first time in his life, to Christopher.
I won't dry your eyes or say it's alright
Cause sometimes that's the lie even if she kissed your cheek
Still the days become weeks, no rewind, no repeats
Steal your heart, life is hard
Very few lyrics have ever just cratered me in a moment that I found myself almost unable to articulate my feelings. I’m a musician, so my connection to songs is most directly through the music, but these lyrics made me feel all sorts of ways in that moment.
They hurt, deeply, but they also soothed. It’s so honest, so direct and without a hint of cynicism or emotion one way or another. It’s just…the truth.
I read these very lyrics as part of my eulogy for my dear niece, Jade, who died in 2022. It may have been even more painful then, I don’t know, but it was honest and it was real.
The music soars and swells with the chamber orchestra. It’s the pinnacle of the record for me and stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.
As someone who has dabbled in eastern religions, I can also tell you it is also like extremely Buddhist. The first Noble Truth after all is quite literally “Life is suffering.” And, for Buddhists, that suffering is because of our attachment to worldly things, people, even our own emotions.
To tell someone who is in pain these words I realize now is a great kindness because it takes everything you feel after the death of a loved one - guilt, anger, sadness, despair - off the table and gives you the right to release it all. It doesn’t work right away, but there is real comfort in knowing the truth and what you can do with it, even if that truth right in that moment totally sucks.
Sheik has always been one of my favorite artists. I love the music he writes and feel connected to his lyrics in a way that is different from most other artists. Whisper House holds a very dear spot in my soul as the brutal truth I needed at an incredibly vulnerable time and I’m forever grateful.
Duncan Sheik - Whisper House
Track Listing
Better to Be Dead
We’re Here to Tell You
And Now We Sing
The Tale of Solomon Snell
Earthbound Starlight
Play Your Part
You’ve Really Gone and Done It Now
How It Feels
I Don’t Believe in You
Take A Bow