On Richard Swift: innovation, immortalisation, and indie rock
The legacy of indie-rock artist Richard Swift reverberates in independent music scenes across the States and beyond, making waves in bands from The Shins to The Black Keys. As a singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, Richard Swift was a man of many monikers, but how does the trope of the tortured artist play into his tracks?
Image by Ender84 on Flickr
On September 21, 2018, Richard Swift’s final album The Hex was released posthumously by Secretly Canadian following his death two months prior from alcoholic hepatitis and liver and kidney distress. Described by Swift in an Instagram post as “11 songs performed by me for family and friends”, The Hex is a tumultuous grapple with love and loss, relayed through the elegiac language of grief. There’s a jarring sense of tragic irony in the fact that Swift’s remembrance of his loved ones is encountered in the context of his own passing. This full circle brings into sharp relief the ability of music to survive us all—a subject that’s broached in ‘Artist & Repertoire’, featured on Swift’s 2007 album Dressed Up for the Letdown: “So try to remember / Try to hold it near / My name will go missing / But the songs will be here.”
‘Broken Finger Blues’ is the most commercial song on the LP. The track is a self-styled fusion of blues with psychedelic pop, written by Swift after, rather appropriately, an incident in which he fractured his finger. There’s all the makeup of a timeless classic in Swift’s wistful meditation on loneliness, with the ghostly refrain of “When you call / Call my name” transporting the song to an uncertain end—one in which only memory can offer sanctuary for a yearning heart. The soulfulness of ‘Broken Finger Blues’ carries over into ‘Dirty Jim’, a jaunty tune that disguises the rather more melancholic hook of “Every colour now is black and blue.”
The syncopated rhythm of ‘Dirty Jim’, redolent of a ragtime classic, is similar in arrangement to ‘Songs of National Freedom’, appearing in Dressed Up for the Letdown, with both tunes strikingly prescient in lyrical content. In the former, Swift’s foreknowledge is almost eerie as he apologises for his absence: “Every daughter in my home / Everyone I’ve left alone / Sorry for the tears I gave to you.” In the latter, Swift offers emphatic words of reassurance: “I’m alive / I’m alive / I’m alive / So tell my daughters not to cry.” But the reading of Swift’s songs as mere death notes is much too reductive when his music is the very medium through which he’s been immortalised.
Born in 1977 to a Quaker family, Swift’s youth was characterised by itinerancy. Leaving his birthplace of California for rural Minnesota, and shortly afterwards residing in Utah and Oregon, one of the few constants in Swift’s nomadic childhood was his choir singing. Although Swift has affirmed his belief in the gospel, his faith wavered, existing as a somewhat capricious force throughout his life. In ‘The Million Dollar Baby’, Swift finds himself, amid his ongoing battle with depression, enslaved by religion, “Sitting at home chained to Christ and a heart attack.” As a child, Swift was a victim of abuse from his stepfather, who berated him for his weight, sexuality, and Hispanic heritage, giving rise to an anxiety disorder that persisted throughout his life.
In 1997, Swift married, and by the ripe old age of twenty-four had three children of his own. While he began his career as a prominent presence within the Christian music scene, Swift soon became disillusioned, and in 2003, released his debut as a soloist: The Novelist. This EP was later merged with Walking Without Effort to produce a double album, released in 2004 by Leftwing Recordings. The result was a mighty seventeen-song collection that carved out a space for Swift as the quintessential indie artist who recorded several ditties in his kitchen on a four-track cassette tape.
The album’s title track, ‘The Novelist’ is the clear standout—appropriate background music for a Jazz Age blind tiger, characterised by Swift’s signature lo-fi finish. We’re given an insight into the arduous creative process and the anxiety of influence that artists are afflicted by: “Listen to Dylan / Shut the door / Nobody cares anymore” and in an exasperated tone: “Trying so hard / To craft a rhyme / With nickels and dimes.” Swift finds himself questioning the value of the love ballad when he concludes: “Maybe mother, she was right / Love is a waste / It’s a pill everyone tastes / In your mouth.” Swift’s musical outlet was at once artistic freedom and a ball and chain, the meaning of life and a push towards death as he implores: “Pull me from my pen before I fall.” Inscribed in ‘The Novelist’, then, is the ultimate dilemma that Swift must face: to create or to destroy.
On the back of his modest succès d'estime, Swift released his follow-up album Dressed Up for the Letdown with Secretly Canadian in 2007. ‘Artist & Repertoire’ encapsulates the recurring motif of the struggling musician with limited commercial success, floundering in the cut-throat world of the music industry with a family to feed. Although Swift’s low-budget production was more of an artistic choice than a matter of circumstance, it’s endemic to the indie artist to feel the pinch at some point, if not continuously, throughout their career. The song opens with dialogue from a fictional records manager who declares vicariously, “Sorry, Mr Swift, but there’s no radio / That likes to play the songs of your lover’s sorrow.” The psychological toll of baring his soul is powerfully conveyed in the following lines: “Just sing us a jingle and we’ll float you some bread / And all it’ll cost you is your heart and your head.” For Swift, producing music was a livelihood, a passion, a lifeblood. However, the treatment of music as a commodity left Swift sapped and tormented. This manifests itself in the final verse that begins with a harrowing apology: “Sorry everybody for the things I said / Got a wife and kids and a gun to my head.”
‘Artist & Repertoire’ is followed by a slightly lighter number, ‘Kisses for the Misses’, a return to classic Swift and his trademark pairing of punchy lyrics with an earworm of a melody. The song highlights the importance of cherishing our dearest relationships before time catches up with us all, beginning with the pithy observation, “Everyone loves you when you’re gone.” Swift’s wry cynicism filters through the refrain of “We’re all alone, ‘cause nobody cares.” It encompasses yet another paradox that Swift must solve—a desire to write, sing, and to support his family, set against a certain resignation. Dressed Up for the Letdown is brought to a close with ‘The Opening Band’, a gorgeously mellow outro that borders on gospel blues. Though the lyrics are sparse, true to form, Swift retells the biblical parable of John the Baptist in a facetious and satirical manner: “His cousin Christ / He was strange, but he was nice / They tried to kick his arse / He didn’t fight back.” This is tailed by a haunting final line which echoes into a resonant silence: “We all die when it’s our time.”
Dan Auerbach, guitarist and vocalist of The Black Keys, formed a garage rock band, The Arcs, with Swift in 2015. By this point, Swift had produced and performed extensively with other musicians, such as his 2011 to 2016 stint as a member of the American indie rock band The Shins. Auerbach recalls Swift’s inimitable musical abilities: “The thing about Rich is that he wasn’t just great at drums or piano—he was better at everything than everybody. [...] He could build a track from nothing to completely finished in an hour. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Swift also collaborated with Washington-based singer-songwriter Damien Jurado on Other People’s Songs Volume One, an album of covers that spans an eclectic range of genres across musical history. The duo perhaps most recognisably reimagines John Denver’s 1970 ‘Follow Me’ and Kraftwerk’s 1976 single ‘Radioactivity’. Each revival is tinged with a fuzzy timbre created in the comfort of Swift’s humble abode, using his secret weapon: a Coles 4038 ribbon microphone and, of course, a four-track cassette tape. The entire album was recorded over an August weekend in 2010. In an interview, Swift stated that he and Jurado set up equipment in separate rooms of his house to work on the instrumentals and vocals for each song. The dining room, wired with microphones, served as the centre of operations.
A personal favourite from the album is ‘Sincere Replies’, a remake of an obscure but groovy tune from the soundtrack of the 1969 Broadway revue Oh! Calcutta! Swift and Jurado produced the song at a slower tempo, giving it a warm, nostalgic tone. The pair had difficulty recording ‘If the Sun Stops Shinin’’, originally by Chubby Checker, due to the soppy lyrics, which, according to Swift, “‘sad artist types’ like Damien Jurado aren’t accustomed to singing.” Swift went on to say, “Phrases like ‘love your life, love everything, make peace in this world’ are funny and corny to Debbie Downers like us.” While the album is rough around the edges, at no point is it amateurish or derivative. The ingenuity of the makeshift production demonstrates Swift’s prowess not only as a solo artist, but also as a collaborator and innovator. “His ability to listen, it was his superpower,” remarks David Bazan from indie rock band Pedro the Lion, who received support from Swift in the production of his 2017 album Care. “In playback, he made sure there was no looking at a screen. There was no talking. No phone. It was this reverent moment.”
In September 2014, at the height of his musical career, Swift’s mother passed away suddenly while he was on tour with The Black Keys. A year later, The Arcs found themselves less than three miles away from the Bataclan during the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, and the band were forced to flee to Italy to take refuge. In the same month, Swift’s sister, Lori, died from cancer. The quick succession of traumatic life events triggered a spiral of decline in Swift’s mental health. His tendency to cope with life’s stressors by drinking only intensified in the wake of his closest family members’ deaths. Although Swift had checked himself into different rehab facilities over the years to try to overcome his alcoholism, he could never quite kick the habit. His wife, Shealynn, reported that “He would participate, and everything seemed perfect, but he refused to truly live it. It was kind of like when he was a kid with Christianity. He questioned it constantly, but no one would have ever guessed that because he was leading worship.”
In memory of his mother, Swift wrote a song called ‘Wendy’, featured on his final album The Hex. Far from a solemn dirge, the tune is more akin to a modern doo-wop carried by infectious vocables, perhaps a nod to ‘Da Do Ron Ron’ sung by the 60s female vocal group The Crystals. In ‘Wendy’, Swift celebrates his mother’s selflessness, professing, “I love you mother like a newborn son / Wendy do ron ron, da do ron ron / And you carry my heart though it weighs a tonne / Wendy do ron ron, da do ron ron.” The next track on The Hex is more sombre, but also more poignant for it. ‘Sister Song’ tells of Lori’s struggles as a single mother, punctuated by a beautifully moody groove: “Don’t worry sister / I hope it isn’t that bad / You left a man, now you’re raising his children / I wish you wasn’t so sad.” This is followed by ‘Nancy’, one of Swift’s most unrestrained and emotionally charged songs, written from his auntie’s perspective about his mother’s death. The refrain of “She’s never coming back” is bellowed by Swift as he reaches a crescendo, with percussions pummelling through an almost quivering tenor. To Swift, family was his muse, his support system, what made him tick. Without them, he faltered.
In June 2018, Swift’s destructive habit of self-medicating finally caught up with him, and he was hospitalised with alcohol-related complications. An online fundraiser was launched to help cover the costs of an uninsured Swift’s medical bills. “Everything is being done to allow his body time to repair and heal,” read the Facebook post published on Swift’s official page that announced his decline in health. Despite the efforts of his family and friends, as time progressed, Swift did not. In the early hours of July 3, 2018, he succumbed to his illness. 41-year-old Richard Ochoa Swift passed away in a hospice in Tacoma, Washington, surrounded by his family in person and spirit to the very end.
On September 20, 2018, Swift’s ashes were scattered during a private ceremony in his home state of Oregon. Swift’s family called for his “larger than life talent” to be remembered through the final song he ever wrote, and the outro of The Hex, ‘Sept 20’, which would have been his 21st wedding anniversary with Shealynn. The track’s brief chorus consists of the marriage vows, “Death do us part / Sickness and health”, but the tone is plaintive. Swift reflects on his own mortality: “When I go, I’ll go out alone / Everybody knows I’ll be safe in my home.” Yet, as is so often the way, Swift’s words are also inflected by a certain foresight: “Made a plan, fixing myself / Trying not to drink from a poisoned well / Slip away, asleep in my car / All the angels sing, ‘qué será, será.’” Rather than recklessness or sheer indifference, ‘Sept 20’ is marked by a will to better oneself, but also an acceptance of one’s limits.
Over the past six months, I’ve spent many hours exploring Swift’s back catalogue, listening to his live performances, watching his interviews, and reading into his lyrics. Even Swift’s lesser-known tracks, such as ‘Cowboy Song #6’, whose occasionally unintelligible lyrics I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet, are hidden gems. In April 2021, Secretly Canadian released a single, ‘KFC’ b/w ‘A Man’s Man’, featuring two of Swift’s unreleased tracks. The former is a spoken word song in which Swift recounts “a story about diarrhoea” from his adolescence. “When I was seventeen or eighteen, I worked for a fast-food chain that fried chicken,” Swift narrates in a distorted voice. “I can’t tell you what the name of the restaurant was, but it rhymed with ‘pentucky pied picken.’”
The monologue is backdropped by bursts of canned laughter, evoking the ambience of a stand-up comedy show. Relaying the experience of losing control of his bowel movements, Swift confesses, “I cried and cried into the cold night / ‘My God, take my life! Take my life, you bearded spaceman!’” In typical Swiftesque fashion, the scatological turns dark when Swift asks, “Have you ever been so sick of vomit and diarrhoea that you just wanted to die? / I’ve never wanted to die until about ten years after this story / I lived in Long Beach and had a bout of depression, but that’s beside the point.” Then the curtains fall, and all is quiet.