On Paul Baribeau by Paul Baribeau

I first stumbled across Paul Baribeau through a rabbit hole of “Similar Artists” on Apple Music. The details are foggy but I almost certainly started with Jeffery Lewis and kept clicking one musician after another until I landed on Baribeau. After listening to a few of the most popular tracks, I added his self titled album to my library. With one tap on a screen, I had started a beautiful journey that may never end.

The amount of times I have thought “I will never forget this moment” far outnumbers the amount of moments I haven’t forgotten. The most memorable moments aren’t usually the ones I suspect either. My first memory actual memory of listening to Paul Baribeau is waiting for an order at my university’s Wendy’s. I leaned my skateboard against the wall and waited for my order as the song Boys Like Me started. It was as mundane as a moment could possibly be. If I were to recall my last meal from a fast food restaurant, I might mentioned ordering, grabbing my food, or eating it. All of which are perfectly mundane on their own. Between these actions, however, is the limbo where I spend most of my life. A perfectly bland space where time goes to be forgotten. This moment, however, was different. The words of the song sank in deeper than they had on previous listens. My memory only tells me this moment but my imagination can fill in the gaps. I may have been anxious about school or stressed about a relationship. Something was certainly getting to me but for the infinite runtime of the track, I heard the world make room for me.

Over the next couple of years, I would always start my one hour trip from college to home with Paul Baribeau’s self titled record. At times, the excitement of going home for the holidays painted the album with a bright palette. Other melancholy trips where I had to leave one life for another highlights the desolate verses. Sometimes the trip smelled like spring and others it felt like the bitter chill of winter. When I listen to the album now, all these feelings are evoked. Memories of the same drive come into view along with their unique context. It's hard to not love something that holds so much of you.

The sorrowful verses of that Paul Baribeau album resonate with me in a way few albums have. Both myself and the Baribeau, at the time of him writing the album, are in a similar place in life. Both young, white, American, males dealing with college, relationships, and life. The stories feel painfully familiar and are told in a vulnerable and honest way. His voice is also passionately honest, as if he feels compelled to tell me what he’s feeling. The words are shouted because if they weren’t, nothing would come out. I can hear the catharsis in a guitar played with sore hands. Despite my endless number of listens, I always tear up by the time I get to Never Get To Know. At that point, the emotions have built up and Baribeau reaches the crescendo of the album. Over the last few years since I discovered Paul Baribeau, I started using it as a tool to help me deal with pent up emotions. Few things have been around both on a life changing vacation and on the drive to a best friend’s funeral. I never know if the tears it creates are for Baribeau or for myself. Either way they help me get to a place I need to be.

Oddly enough, I didn’t realize how important the album was to me until I accidentally admitted it to a friend. I was showing him an old stack ranking of my favorite albums and pointed out how low Paul Baribeau was, explaining that the list was out dated because it wouldn't just be higher, it would be off the chart. This was mostly just a joke but I did mean it. My friends responded, “so that’s your favorite album?” It took me a second to process what just happened, I never considered the album my favorite but I believed what I said. Calling something my favorite seems childish but it also seems true in this case. No album, or work of art, has had such a clear impact on my life.

I don’t mean to oversell the sadness of Baribeau’s self titled record or undersell his other records. Paul Baribeau by Paul Baribeau is an incredible album in many ways, Strawberry is one of the most beautiful love songs I’ve heard, and his other albums under the same name are also inspiring. Not to mention his more recent endeavor, New Boy; an amazing electronic project. But Paul Baribeau by Paul Baribeau has become a staple in my life.