“Bologna (feat. Fiver)” by Destroyer
Here’s a sentence I never expected to write in 2025 (or any other year, for that matter): Dan Bejar and I have something in common regarding our creative process.
It’s been a minute since I last put down any words about music; I took an intentional break from writing (aside from helping out with some year-end work) because the process was starting to feel like endlessly clicking on a near-empty lighter, hoping to get one last dying flicker of flame to start and ignite a slow-burning cigarette (one that you know will ultimately cause more pain than pleasure in the long run).
After completing Destroyer’s 2022 album, LABYRINTHITIS, Bejar did something similar: he challenged himself to avoid writing any songs at all so that “the ideas would well up inside of him until they breached containment.” Bejar went almost two years before he switched tactics and started making himself play piano every day for an hour (which appears to have lasted less than a week).
One of the finest tunes from this self-imposed creative confines is “Bologna,” an unexpected swivel from an artist who has never stirred his coffee in the same direction twice. As the lead single to Destroyer’s forthcoming album, Dan’s Boogie, “Bologna” is a finely processed slice of echoey psychedelic pop and love-lorn storytelling. Vocally led by Fiver’s Simone Schmidt while Bejar takes a breathy backseat, “Bologna” is musically positioned in the middle of a spectrum between Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood’s Nancy & Lee and Portishead’s Dummy. Schmidt is the perfect foil for Bejar’s dead-pan delivery; their unmistakable raspy drawl lends an expressive warmth and urgency to the swaggering reverb running rife through “Bologna.”
I was lying in bed in the dark when I first heard “Bologna. ” It made me sit up and open my eyes to stare into the darkness towards the source of these moody, maudlin, and mystic sounds. As I listened, I could visualize the scene projected before me, coming into focus like a black-and-white film reel, scratched and faded yet composed and edited to deliver maximum emotional impact. Its timelessness is a testament to the deep well of creativity Bejar continues to mine for the fourteenth (my God!) Destroyer album.
“There’s an outside chance / you’ll never see me again,” drawls Schmidt, repeating “you’ll never see me again” less for emphasis and more to strengthen their resolve to leave their lover. What’s unclear through the song’s seductive shuffle is whether the parties in this relationship already knew the end was inevitable or if this is just another in a long line of break-ups and make-ups. In other words, how outside is this chance that this is the last these two will ever see of each other?
And that’s kind of the crux of creativity, is it not? One minute, you’re tangoing with the muses; the next, you’re… well, you’re not. With one flick, the lighter sputters; the next time, it catches and burns bright. So, sometimes, you need to go away to come back again. You need to follow Bejar’s lead, set yourself a challenge, and impose some limits. Gather your wits about you and find that thing inside you that makes your soul sing and compels you to go forward. Or, as is the case for me, you need to realize that a relationship needs to end.
Friends: there’s an outside chance that this is DOMINIONATED’s last post. It’s better than an outside chance. This is 100% going to be DOMINIONATED’s last-ever post, and we take our leave from the Canadian contemporary musical discourse the same way we came in: making a personal connection to the art and artistry of an undefinable musical talent.
Since 2016, a dedicated team of music enthusiasts have been collectively attempting to connect threads from the art and artists who’ve moved and inspired us to the fabric of our lives, relationships, troubles and celebrations. While on my self-imposed hiatus last year, Alyssa Gelata, Tia Julien, and Em Moore stepped up and kept the conversations going. I am forever indebted to them for their efforts and enthusiasm. I am eternally grateful to the dynamic duo of Weadee Mombo and Weajue Mombo for their commitment to literal conversations with the 20 or 20 podcast. This all might have ended much earlier if it had not been for another powerhouse duo joining the fold: thank you, Laura Stanley and Michael Thomas, for giving a hoot about DOMINIONATED’s mission and vision and sharing your expertise and passions with our readers.
To all our contributors and volunteers, past and present, without you, my and Mac’s dream of bringing a team of like-minded music lovers together to form a community would never have come true. Speaking of which, Mackenzie Cameron, you unequivocally rock. Thank you for co-founding DOMINIONATED with me and always being in my corner. It’s been wild.
Finally, thank YOU for making it this far into this post. There’s more than an outside chance that 99.9% of the ten people who will actually open this post will not make it this far into it, so to those who have stuck it out right to the very end, thank you for engaging with us.
Please do what you can to keep Canadian music conversations going.
by Jim Di Gioia
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