Strange Invitation

A look back at “Jack-Ass,” one of Beck’s most enduring (and enigmatic) songs

“I’ve been drifting along…”

Those four words kick off Beck’s seminal track “Jack-Ass.” And while they’re not the most evocative or colorful lyrics he’s ever sang, on an album full of Dadaist imagery and bizarre escapades, they are some of the most revealing.

Sandwiched between the burning-hot light bulbs of “Novacane” and “Where It’s At” on Odelay’s marquee sign, “Jack-Ass” is one of the few times Beck had turned to self-reflection in his pre-Sea Change career. Still, almost three decades later, not much has been written about this quiet, wistful interlude, despite its early glimpse at the sad man behind the perdedor persona.

Nor is there any conjecture about what (if anything) can be gleaned from how often it pops up in Beck’s Odelay-era catalogue. There’s the disheveled album cut, the decidedly more poppy Butch Vig mix, the ethereal and diffused “Strange Invitation,” and even some heart-on-sleeve mariachi in “Burro” (a version that, like much of Beck’s work, expertly straddles the nebulous space between heart-wrenching sincerity and complete satire.)

These numerous manifestations suggest that the track has an important place in Beck’s mid-90s output. And yet that frequency brings us no closer to its actual meaning, symbolic or otherwise.

With Beck, that’s always been the big question (i.e., “What the hell is this guy singing about?”) Until Sea Change dropped in 2002, he posited himself in an observational role, more a cartographer than a purveyor of the madness. This lent a murky quality to his lyrics — despite all the vivid symbolism and wordplay — where songs could be about everything or nothing, depending on your interpretation.

Take his POV on Mellow Gold’s “Blackhole.” A series of dialogue balloons, the track could be describing life at the margins, perhaps even child homelessness. On a second playthrough? Mere disassociated household imagery.

And yet, there’s weight to these words. “Looking for a better home,” “layin’ in a sleeping bag,” and “can’t afford a telephone” are statements imbued with pain and weariness. Real meaning lies in that torment, even if it is obscured by Beck’s stream-of-consciousness approach.

Bolstered by a scraggly acoustic that would later become a staple on Sea Change, “Jack-Ass” floats along like a midnight movie intermission, dreamy sitars plucking in the left ear, a loop of murmuring flutes in the right. Beck’s voice, tired but satisfied, takes stock of Odelay midway through the party. It’s not quite a confessional, but there is that indelible painterly quality that provides us with the visual of a lonely, passive observer chronicling what he sees.

Still, even digging into individual phrases (“gravity shackles” anyone?), there’s no definitive judgment on what, if anything, “Jack-Ass” means. And that probably doesn’t matter. For one, this is the very same songwriter who once rhymed “garbage man trees” with “mouthwash jukebox gasoline.” Trying to pin down what literal import lies beneath these lines would be downright Jungian.

But more importantly, considering Beck’s influences, and his impact on the multi-hyphenate artists that followed him, it’s probably safe to say that meaning is far less important to Beck than feeling. “Jack-Ass” isn’t an essay or a monologue or even a narrative. It’s an almanac of the lived experience — longing, regret, fulfillment, restlessness, and beyond. Beck understands, as listeners do, that we don’t need these ideas to be depicted literally in order to recognize them.

Whiskeyclone.net, an exhaustive repository for all things Beck, puts it best: “That moment when you stop drifting, when the puzzles get put together. Something is calling you forward, a strange invitation.”