Album Review: DREAMS ON THE PASSENGER SEAT by DAMEDAME*
The Walsall duo’s debut says goodbye in French, takes the blame in English, and keeps the worst sadness for God. It’s a first album with the ease of a fifth.
As a writing and production team, DAMEDAME* comprised two Black women hailing from Jorja Smith’s hometown. Barbara Boko and Edith Nelson were born and bred in Walsall, the Black Country, in the West Midlands, near Birmingham, and wrote and produced music before becoming singers relatively recently. “It was the album that brought me home,” as Smith put it herself later about Falling or Flying, and home is where Boko and Nelson explore the topics of DREAMS ON THE PASSENGER SEAT. Home is where somebody cooks for you, where your partner refuses to answer you directly, and where the sadness you hide from Instagram stays.
The address of home is mentioned in “CINNAMON,” the track with the sampled vocal from Jabez Walsh production, and the woman there hopes for visitors: “Come look for me I’m home/It’s good for me.” There is somebody cooking for her there, and by her admission, nothing else is good for her at all. “Security was foolishly one hell of a drug,” she admits, having the idea turned into something transactional already, “I use my loneliness for ransom does that tell you enough.” She spends all nights dreaming but not sleeping, describing the faith that died without any bouquets coming to its grave, seeing herself being thrown eastward to Vietnam and the Philippines, and yet keeps repeating: don’t go home girl, stay.
Jorja Smith gives some thanks in kind on “FREEDOM,” where the writing part of DAMEDAME* is a challenge, “You wan’ talk bout freedom/Walk without freedom first,” together with the price tag for that, “When the colours disappear/Over the years/I lost my way.” She sings about somebody who is scared and sure of the thing that he needs lying inside him, and her advice is straightforward: “Don’t sell your soul could you live with it/On the edge don’t lose your grip.”
This very fear is explored on “A STRANGER,” the push and pull feeling that she just can’t figure out, “One minute I need ya/Next minute I wanna be alone,” until the imagery starts getting too dark for the uncertainty: “Don’t leave by the noon/Hold me by the noose/Hold me by the sun/Hold me by the moon.” Reuben Reynolds plays guitar there and on “LANGUAGES,” the lighter track, where she watches the girl’s body looking for something to say, sure that none can speak the same language. The request stops at “Baby girl don’t be shy/I see that you wanna be mine.” She begs the girl not to resist, and the girl remains unnamed and faceless with no lines of her own.
She demands commitment with an expiration date on “PROMISE”: “If I die/God forbid that you ain’t by my side/Is that a promise.” She calls herself a dreamer there and rolls her eyes at anybody who is not. On “ALL OF MY LIFE,” another track co-written with Alastair O’Donnell, the demand turns into self-reflection: “All of my life I have tried to become what you wanted/Feel myself falling slowly drowning in the oceans.” The beggary becomes shorter and shorter, from “Don’t let it be over” down to “Will you be my friend.”
The farewell is bilingual: “I cannot stay for another second/I will live alone not lonely in your love,” as she decides on “BURIED IN THE SAND,” and after making up her mind she starts singing in French, “On est assez cassé la la/See ya ya cha cha ciao/Dis moi au revoir comme sa la.” A wish-you-well message pops up in English in the middle of it – the most polite moment in the whole track.
What she can’t say to her partner she says to God on “SMS”: “Nobody can save my soul I don’t wanna wake up, God shake my soul Nobody’s gonna take my woe.” The verse afterward is even simpler. “I look at the news, I’m sad/I look on the ‘gram, I’m sad,” she starts and, in the same breath, “I don’t show it.” The self-questioning that follows includes the questions of worthiness and capability, starting with money and ending in nerves, whether she deserves what is coming to her, whether she is capable of doing anything with it, and even a hint of what job she has: “I don’t like sitting in these meetings whilst they rub their hands.” The imposter syndrome is even named and smoking included along with the memory of moving cars in a life that God ended for her.
Boko and Nelson tell the whole work history on “FIRE BURNIN’ THRU THE RAIN,” giving the answer to the question of how hard is chasing a dream in a form of CV: “Had 25 jobs when I was only 25,” then “I’ve seen many many trials in my Air Force 1s,” and then the friends who did not make it and prayers that are easier to pray for other people’s needs than for hers. She takes all the blame on “LUV MYSELF,” telling the girl that the ones outside are the same anyway, and digging deep down to the bottom of it: “Been playing villain all my life/Now I know I really shoulda love myself.” By then, she misses the same woman again, confessing that she knows the difference between good and best, yet still hoping she is wrong.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “CINNAMON,” “SMS,” “LUV MYSELF”