One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big SurEmpty Bottle Evenings

Mar042014March 4, 2014March 5, 2014No Commentby Bake

One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur

Posted in Music

Let’s keep it going with Jay Farrar compilations. One Fast Move is him and Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service) teaming up to create a soundtrack for a documentary on the making of Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur. Apparently this Kerouac fella is still popular. I heard this documentary kinda sucked but don’t worry, a feature film based on the novel was just released in 2013 too. And that had Kate Bosworth, of Blue Crush fame, so that couldn’t be terrible? Right? Right?!

I never read Big Sur, or watched any of the film drek that came out related to it in recent years. I did enjoy On the Road but can’t help but feel this generation doesn’t really get it. I bought my copy at a used book store a few years ago, and there is a personal inscription in it from a dad to his daughter. It reads “Laurie, Something about part of the Beat Generation. My generation.- Dad”. Judging by fact that I picked it up for a dollar in the bargain bin, I’m not sure Laurie regarded it as quite the self defining novel that her father did. If you ask most young people what they think about On the Road they’ll probably reference the 2012 film version. Which, to be fair, did have the girl from Twilight giving a double handy j, but I still find it hard to believe people are getting more out of that piece of crap than the book.

Anyway, Farrar and Gibbard seem to appreciate Kerouac’s work, as they used his words to pen the lyrics to One Fast Move. The themes: alcoholism, depression, and isolation. Yeah, the music makes you want to cry into the vat of whiskey that you’re holding too. Who knew California was so bleak? Well, these two old songwriters might get Kerouac but more than that they get how to create songs that are just flat out depressing. So if you’re too lazy to read Big Sur, just put this album on and wallow away without it.