10 Best Ben Folds Five Songs

Ben Folds had been trying to break into the music industry for years when he formed Ben Folds Five with Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee in 1993.

The trio played piano-centred music in the grunge era, but fitted in with their energy and Folds’ sharp, provocative lyrics. The uncharacteristically sincere ‘Brick’ enjoyed major airplay in 1997.

They split after three albums in 2000, but returned with 2012’s The Sound of the Life of the Mind. Let’s look back at their ten best tracks.

10 Best Ben Folds Five Songs

#10 The Sound of the Life of the Mind

from The Sound of the Life of the Mind, 2012
The Ben Folds Five reunited for a 2012 album. It’s clearly their weakest record, but the title track is a keeper. The Sound of the Life of the Mind is a leftover from Folds’ collaboration with novelist Nick Hornby on Lovely Avenue.

There’s some progressive rock ambition in the complex arrangement and the winding melody.

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#9 Boxing

from Ben Folds Five, 1995
Ben Folds Five’s debut album is energetic and succinct, the band compensating for the lack of guitar by creating a raucous racket. But the closer ‘Boxing’ reaches into pre-rock styles, with a slow tempo and syrupy strings.

It’s an imaginary conversation between sports reporter Howard Cosell and boxer Muhammad Ali.

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#8 Philosophy

from Ben Folds Five, 1995
‘Philosophy’ was the fourth single from Folds’ debut album. It starts with some lovely baroque piano before Jessee’s drumming adds some punch. It’s unusually self-reflective for a debut album, with Folds spelling out his artistic philosophy. “I’m crazy, but I get the job done”

There’s this mode I go into from time to time… It begins with visualizing a seemingly impossible accomplishment as if it had already come to be. A trance ensues, mountains are moved and soon it is so… Results fueled by temporary delusion… its that temporary state of craziness that pushes us to make the fantasy real, whether it is building a house, writing a movie or running a marathon.

Ben Folds, A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons

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#7 Narcolepsy

from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, 1999
The opening track from the band’s third album, ‘Narcolepsy’ signals a more ambitious record. Instead of an accessible pop melody, there are strings and foreboding piano figures. But it works – Folds has the musical sophistication to pull it off.

The title of the Five’s third album was taken from the name that drummer Darren Jessee and his friends used on fake IDs in their teens. They were shocked to learn that it was the name of a famous mountaineer, the first person to summit Everest solo.

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#6 Evaporated

from Whatever and Ever Amen, 1997
The resigned piano ballad ‘Evaporated’ closes Whatever and Ever Amen. Folds wrote it in one sitting on a quiet night in the band’s rehearsal house in Chapel Hill. It’s elegant, with a simple arrangement. “Here I stand/Sad and free”.

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#5 Underground

from Ben Folds Five, 1995
‘Underground’ is about social outsiders finding solace in underground music and art cliques. Folds found it difficult to make friends as a kid, since his family was often moved. He recognised the same longing for connection in his fanbase.

It was the band’s first hit, squeaking into the UK top 40.

I think it’s funny to make a very happy, cabaret-sounding song about the underground of the indie rock world.

Ben Folds

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#4 Fair

from Whatever and Ever Amen, 1997
‘Fair’ is the second cut on the band’s breakthrough album. It packs a lot into a pop song, with its “bah-bah-bahs”, and ends with an extended ragtime-flavoured piano solo. The lyrics are about

And he stumbled through the yard
And she shattered her last china plate

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#3 Army

from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, 1999
While The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner is ambitious, the lead single is punchy and upbeat. The entire song is based on Folds’ experiences after flunking music school. There’s one exception – Folds never grew a mullet.

I flunked the test because I got delivered to the test in a police car at six o’clock in the morning with stitches in my nose and stitches in my mouth. And I was still drunk. And I had a broken hand, presumably because I had clocked that ass. I hit the wall.

So I threw my drum set, which is the instrument that I flunked on, into Lake Osceola in the middle of University of Miami and I took a Greyhound bus … back home and I worked with a bunch of old ladies in a grocery store for about 18 months. It was at that time that I decided in my bedroom I decided while listening to Elvis Costello in 1986 that maybe I shouldn’t wait tables and do this old lady job anymore, maybe… I should join the army.

Ben Folds, Enmore

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#2 Alice Childress

from Ben Folds Five, 1995
Folds wrote ‘Alice Childress’ with his then-wife Anna Goodman. She wrote the lyrics as a parody of Folds’ style.

It’s not named for author Alice Childress. According to The Delete Bin, Goodman was working in a mental hospital with a woman named Alice Childress. Childress threw water on Goodman, which inspired Goodman to write a song in Ben Folds’ style.

The sudden bursts of warm harmony vocals make the arrangement, contrasting with the austerity of the rest of the song.

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#1 Brick

from Whatever and Ever Amen, 1997
Folds wrote ‘Brick’ about his girlfriend’s abortion in high school. Compared to the vibrant silliness that dominates Folds’ first two albums, it’s serious, which makes it even more profound. Drummer Darren Jessee wrote the chorus.

I was surprised to learn that lots of fans dislike Folds’ breakthrough song. But Folds himself doesn’t share the opinion – he told ITunes original that “The fact that that song was a hit gives me some confidence in pop music because the song is completely honest, what it is, it’s crafted well.”

What your favourite Ben Folds Five song?

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