Whether performing in a synagogue or at a music festival, Langhorne Slim never fails to captivate audiences with his stories, songs, and sweat-filled struts through the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea (in white overalls). And even without his intimate live performances to accompany this release, Slim’s Strawberry Mansion invites us along his introspective journey. The double album suspends time and place brimming with imagination-filled and prayer-like lyrics. With a lust for past and present lives, Slim’s seventh album Strawberry Mansion drops today.
When talking to Rabbi Slim, we’re transported to the world of a little boy from Eastern Pennsylvania who feels out of place and time, sitting on the laps of his grandpops Sid and Jack, listening to stories of their adventures. He imagined his grandfathers as young boys – newsies types, Huck Finn types, shooting the shit, clad in caps and suspenders, running around their Strawberry Mansion. The pink-tinted, sweet and juicy neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia was their playground. Thirty years later, Langhorne Slim feels more at home in this world, and in his very own strawberry mini-mansion where he’s found alley cats to prance with. His pink house in East Nashville is filled with objects and knickers from all of his own adventures, but he still carries his grandparents’ spirits close to his heart.
Read on to hear Slim’s views on livin’ life inside a strawberry:
Historic Strawberry Mansion in Philadelphia
Allston Pudding: I had a feeling that Strawberry Mansion was about the neighborhood in Philadelphia, do you have a connection there?
Langhorne Slim: Strawberry Mansion, which was referred to as “The Mansion” by my grandparents and their friends, is a place that I’ve heard about throughout my entire life. My grandfathers were born and raised in Strawberry Mansion and they were the big men in me and my brothers’ lives growing up. Like old folks do, they reminisce about old times. I used to hear these stories about them running around before they went off to war and when they came home and their experiences as children.
Imagine Huck Finn and not-so-much Oliver from Oliver Twist, but more like Jack who was his badass counterpart homeboy. I had this vision from these stories of these young guys who were kind of mischievous, and they were poor, and they had dirt under their fingernails, and they knew how to take care of shit as youngins. I knew these guys not then, only through their stories. I knew them as older men. They were incredibly generous emotionally; my examples of men who were kind and sweet and loving. I never watched “The Notebook” with my grandfathers, but if I had seen it with my grandpa Jack, I bet he would have teared up and cried. He wasn’t afraid of that.
Maybe everybody feels this way, but as a kid I felt like I was born in the wrong time and place. It took a while to find my crew of like-minded freaks and creative people. I’m from a small town in Pennsylvania and growing up in that environment, hearing these stories, I longed for a gang of friends to run around with; they all had these names like Whistle and there was a fella named Curly. When I grew older and moved to New York, a version of my Strawberry Mansion opened up. There was a much more diverse array of cats; creatively diverse, racially diverse, sexually diverse. I also live in a pink house now and I didn’t think of it this way, but I guess it kind of looks like a strawberry. It’s not a mansion, but it is a pink house.
AP: Speaking of your grandparents, we have always wondered what it feels like to sing “Song for Sid” at every one of your concerts?
LS: I rarely feel like I have to force myself to fake it to get any emotion out of that song. It came to me right after my grandfather Sid passed away. I’ve got codependency issues. I don’t like saying goodbye to living people. It’s not a goodbye to my grandfather, it’s like a… I don’t know what the fuck it is. It’s like keeping the line of communication open. I wear his necklace every day around my neck and I’ve sung that song in front of audiences when the necklace falls off. I feel that old man around me. With writing songs like that, you get to hear beautiful stories and the saddest motherfucking stories from people that connect to it, which is a trip and an honor. If you look out into the crowd and you see people getting emotional, it’s the same as looking out and seeing people dance.. That puts a feeling in you that there’s something higher going on.
AP: You speak a lot about spirituality, and in this album you specifically reference ‘god’ and ‘lord’ often. Do you believe in those things more tangibly or in the conventional sense?
LS: I don’t know what the conventional belief is in God, I know how I read about it or how people use it against each other. It almost seems negative from where I stand. I was raised in a liberal Jewish light kind of vibe. I’m proud of my roots and the traditions of it, but my Hebrew school experience was more like learning how to pronounce words so you can recite them at some point and then they’re gonna tell you that you’re a man at thirteen. So how do you get any context? It was an issue that I had in school in English too. There was a lot of memorization but there wasn’t anything underneath it that we were actually learning. I’ve always felt that there’s more than meets the eye.
There are perhaps avenues that lead me towards a lighter step and love and compassion. I know those words you can slap on bumper stickers and put ’em on the back of your Subaru Crosstrek (that’s my car, that’s why I say that), but ever since I was a little kid I felt sensitive, let’s put it that way, to energy. But I feel like I don’t have anything fucking figured out. I am skeptical of those who will plant their feet so firmly in the ground and wave banners for any particular man or woman or thing at all.
But Praise Jesus. I do love Jesus, I’m just a little skeptical of what man or woman does in the name of Jesus.
AP: On the religion note– a few years ago I saw you with my parents at 6th & I Synagogue in D.C. and my dad pointed out that you didn’t swear at all during that performance.
LS: That’s so fucking funny. Interestingly when my mother comes to shows she points out how much I curse. I’m not a scripted fella, so it’s a stream of consciousness that’s coming out of my face. I’ve definitely dropped some potty mouth on a stage or two in my years. I do think cursing can be beautiful when used correctly or it can be sloppy. But I’m glad I held back for your dad at the synagogue.
AP: What is it like to talk about a panic attack and anxiety in such a relatable, overt way?
“She said, do you ever think about dying?
I said no but sometimes I lie
And do you wanna live?
I said yes but I feel like shit
On a scale of one to ten do you feel anxious?
On a scale of one to ten do you feel scared?”
LS: Now that it’s a song that will live out there, if I hear people connect to it, that would be helpful. “Panic Attack” was straight up from talking to this therapist, this amazing woman. I told her, “I have all these guitars in my house and I’ve been feeling this kind of way.” She asked, “Does going to the guitar and playing music soothe you?” I said, “No, it’s the opposite. If I’m feeling that way, everything can feel like it’s attacking. The guitar in particular; I almost feel unworthy of it.” Oy oy oyyyyyy. Up until this burst of songs came, I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to finish another record. She suggested the next time I was feeling real out of sorts to go pick up the guitar and just lean into it. “On a scale of 1-10 do you feel anxious?” I don’t know if I’m gonna owe money or something to healthcare for that lyric. Those are questions I was asked over the phone and paperwork I had to fill out.
I’ve been through it and I’ll continue to go through it. One of my friends said, “If I’m being real with myself, the more real I can be in song and in my relationships.” When I’m able to kick the door down on some discomfort or insecurity I feel empowered by that shit.
.…From the ashes there grows beautiful things. And There Is Flowers….
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