Pitchfork

Iconoclasts suffer. It's the fate of simply being yourself. Such is the story of Jonathan Richman. Jonathan's the type of guy who'd have serenaded the head cheerleader at two a.m. in a mariachi outfit, and done it straight-faced with complete sincerity. She'd have been creeped out, and Jonathan would've inevitably been beaten bloody by her boyfriend, but once he wised up and turned his attention to the girls that are truly feverish for romance-- those geeky girls with Harlequins tucked under their mattresses-- they'd swoon to his unabashedly heartfelt and naïve yearning. Of course, such romanticism is cloying when taken seriously, but Richman always conveys-- however subtly-- that his tongue's in-cheek.

Richman's not a newcomer to the music scene by any stretch of the imagination. Including the couple of albums he cut with the seminal proto-punk band the Modern Lovers, Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow represents his 19th full-length release. Despite recording one of the most prescient albums in rock history and his prolific catalog, Richman is still a pretty obscure artist with a small following. But even if you've never heard the name Jonathan Richman, chances are you're more familiar with him than you think, largely due to his cameos in There's Something About Mary. Yes, that was him. And his little segues actually manage to give a pretty good general impression of Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow.

The seeds of Richman's current sound were all sewn in the winsome 1950s: sparse rockabilly and doo-wop arrangements filled with conventional romantic truisms, but also sharpened with an understated wit; there are even some awkward ventures into Latin forms like the bolero, meringue and the samba, as stiff and amusing as a gringo learning to salsa. It's all lightweight stuff, but that's where its charm lies.

Her Mystery is full of the mawkish sentimentality of young love, naïve sexuality and the stirrings of spring: "On Canal Street in April when it's 60 and the snow is melting fast/ It's still shady in the morning when you're laughing in your t-shirt running past/ In Tompkins Square Park a couple is meeting/ Say what you want, but I feel my heart beating/ Because I love springtime in New York, springtime in New York, I do." "From Springtime in New York" sums up the wide-eyed, Gump-like unaffectedness of the songs here; the album contains about as many illicit thoughts as a eunuch in a harem.

Later, on the same track, he sings: "On 1st Avenue, a couple is breakin' up/ Eviction, too, they must be shaken up/ But I love springtime in New York." It's lines like these that give the album its clever, off-kilter orientation. Nothing seems to bring this guy down; I don't think there's an ounce of cortisol in his system. Even conflict is viewed as naturally as a morning shit in songs like "Couples Must Fight": "My heart knows pain, my heart knows sorrow/ My heart knows wrongs that could never make right/ But for a better day tomorrow, couples must argue, couples must fight." A five year old couldn't state it more simply.

I don't know how well Richman knows his Spanish, but the last four songs are sung exclusively en Español, as eagerly as a student looking for extra credit. He reminded me of David Byrne toying with these Latin rhythms-- the voices are even quite similar, and there seems to be a strain of Trio Los Panchos influence winding its way through the album with the intricate guitar picking that opens some of the tracks.

For the most part, the songs are stripped to the bare minimum: acoustic guitar, bass and a minimal drum kit, often played with a brush. There's an appearance from what sounds like a bass clarinet on "I Took a Chance" and the title track, and there's some additional percussion to spice things up on the Latin numbers, but that's it. The album as a whole encompasses enough styles to sound almost like a cover album. Many of the tracks sound vaguely familiar, with Richman providing new lyrics. The rhythmic progression of "Springtime in New York" is just like Prince's "The Beautiful Ones"; "Tonight" is "Earth Angel"; and others were agonizingly hard to place, but I think mostly, the familiarity is just the result of the deceptive simplicity of these songs.

Albums this unpretentious are increasingly rare, and I think that's what makes Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow so seductive. We all used to view the world this way before we hit puberty, got a job, got dumped a few times and became so suspicious of others' motives. It's nice to know we have albums like this to turn on instead of CNN when we want things to be just a little less complicated.