Ben Lee – ‘Ben Lee’
Ben Lee - ‘Ben Lee’
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 6 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
For all the light-hearted pop he’s eschewed over his career, Ben Lee also possessed strains of over-earnestness and white-boy spirituality that sat uncomfortably alongside his more inter-textual, self-reflexive lyrics (‘We’re All In This Together’ anyone?). Fortunately, the hits always far outweighed the misses and even those who hate on this still-divisive little songwriter probably found themselves humming one of his tunes at one time or another.
It’s great, then, to hear his most transparent and heightened offering of self-aware humour so far floating around the internet. The song in question is ‘Ben Lee,’ originally recorded by The Ataris as a hate letter to title performer and presented here, unedited, with its full anti-Lee rhetoric still firmly in place.
It’s a wonder Lee can sing with his tongue clearly planted so firmly in his cheek. I don’t know whether Lee or the listener are having more fun here.
i wonder if he’ll also have a stab at Klinger’s “Ben Lee” too? He could put out a limited edition 7″ with one on each side. Meta.
There’s kind of a ‘coming full circle’ thing going here; think of Lee’s ‘I wish I was him’, written about Evan Dando of the Lemonheads when Lee was something like 14. Meh heh heh, I really enjoyed this.