There is something of the holy fool about Devendra Banhart and, if I understand the phrase correctly, I mean that as a compliment.
The holy fool, like Dean Moriarty or Puck, but not Dougal, has three core characteristics. One, he refuses to mature, because the rewards of adult life are not worth the contract they’re written on. Two, he celebrates the world with the delighted disbelieving howl of joy of a toddler with the tickles. And three: he has a hotline to the Divine. The holy fool’s serious job is to pass on a message from God not to take it all too seriously.
In Banhart’s case, this explains a lot. It explains why the crisp skipping nonsense songs (“If I lived in China, I’d have some Chinese children / And if I lived in Spain-land, I’d still have Chinese children”) are sung with the same commitment as the hushed admissions of awe (‘Dragonflys’, ‘Woman’). It suggests that three albums in 14 months (and Cripple Crow is 22 songs long) reflects exultation in creation rather than editorial failure.
It explains the themes of fecundity and flourishing new life that rebound around the record, as in ‘Long Haired Child’ and ‘Mama Wolf’; and it helps us understand why, though he might do better sticking to love songs sung in Spanish (‘Pensando Enti’), he turns his hand too to ultra-naive, apparently pointless, though lovely, anti-war songs (‘Heard Somebody Say’).
You wouldn’t want to go into debate with Christopher Hitchens with only ‘Heard Somebody Say’ for armour but the childish, Puckish logic is inescapable: “It’s simple, we don’t wanna kill”. We’re all so bright and knowing that it’s disconcerting to get brought back to when things were actually that simple, but Banhart’s puzzled smooth clear keening grounds you and reminds you. You yearn for your innocence and you realise it’s not irretrievable. And when that happens, the funniest, most holy-foolish line on Cripple Crow becomes less a laugh-line or a peculiar truth than an aspiration: “From being my daddy’s sperm to being packed in an urn / I’m a child”.