LIVE
JONATHAN RICHMAN
Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Bloomington, Indiana, February 26
Eternal optimist breathes new life into his old teenage anthems
J
ONATHAN Richman has a question for us. “Audience!” he declares, two songs into his first live show of 2025. “Are we ready to rid ourselves of the sinister dark mistakes we’ve made in our lives?” It’s a question more expected of a cult leader than a cult hero, but Richman is merely setting the tone for a musically and spiritually generous performance. “Don’t say yes if you’re not sure,” he cautions. “Because, as we know, it’s better to be a sincere denizen of the dark than a false bearer of the light.”
Then, with a shout of, “Are you with me?” he launches into “Let Her Go Into The Darkness”, a song that first appeared on his 1995 album You Must Ask The Heart but was popularised by the film There’s Something About Mary. It’s an odd anthem, one that exhorts us to let others make their own mistakes rather than strictly police their inner lives. This might seem like a weirdly heavy number to include so early in a show that will later include an ode to cold pizza and a song that rhymes “banana” with “Carlos Santana”, but such is the fervour of Richman’s songwriting that it really does feel like a fun exorcism: clever and big-hearted but also serious and ultimately cathartic.