Whatever and Ever Amen

Whatever and Ever Amen
Studio album by Ben Folds Five
Released	March 18, 1997
Recorded	September–October 1996, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Genre	Alternative rock[1]
Length	49:20
Label	550 Caroline Epic
Producer	Ben Folds Caleb Southern
Ben Folds Five chronology
Ben Folds Five (1995) Whatever and Ever Amen (1997) Naked Baby Photos (1998)
Singles from Whatever and Ever Amen
"Battle of Who Could Care Less" Released: 1997 "Kate" Released: 1997 "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces" Released: 1997 "Brick" Released: November 21, 1997 "Song for the Dumped" Released: 1998

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Chicago Tribune	[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[4]
Entertainment Weekly	A[5]
Los Angeles Times	[6]
NME	6/10[7]
Pitchfork	7.6/10[8]
Q	[9]
Rolling Stone	[10]
Spin	9/10[11]

Whatever and Ever Amen is the second album by Ben Folds Five, released on March 18, 1997.^[12] Three singles were released from the album, including the lead single, "Battle of Who Could Care Less", which received significant airplay on alternative radio and on MTV, and peaked at number 26 on the UK Singles Chart and number 22 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the band's biggest hit, "Brick", which was a top-40 song in numerous countries.

A remaster was made available on March 22, 2005. All of the extra tracks had been previously released (as b-sides, soundtrack contributions, etc.) except for a cover of the Buggles song "Video Killed the Radio Star", which is a staple of Ben Folds Five's live show.

Title, recording and cover

Title

While recording the album, Folds told the Sheffield Electronic Press in November 1996 that the album would likely either be titled Cigarette or The Little Girl With Teeth.^[13] The title Whatever and Ever Amen comes from a line in the song "Battle of Who Could Care Less".^[14]

Cover

The album's original cover featured individual photos of Folds, Sledge, and Jessee, along with a hand-drawn Ben Folds Five logo, and a hand-drawn "Whatever and Ever Amen." The cover of the 2005 remastered version moved the album's title from the top left corner to the center and added a fourth photo of all three bandmates sitting together.

Recording

The album was recorded in the front room of a house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Folds said, "You can't go for perfection in a house. The spiritual comet of the song comes by every so often and lots of technical things are going to be going wrong when that happens. Our producer, Caleb is very good at knowing when the ghost blew through the house. People don't buy records for the accuracy." The first release for their new label, Epic, Folds said the record company did not get to hear the recording until it was finished, saying, "they knew what they were getting into."^[15]

Track notes

Near the end of the Nerdist podcast #132, Folds mentioned that the lyrics for "Cigarette" were taken from a newspaper article he claimed was about a man, Fred Jones, who "felt conflicted" after finding his wife had a changed personality due to a brain tumor, on the basis that she was not the same person he had married. (The article, from a 1991 edition of The Tennessean, is actually about the implanted epidural catheter procedure that brought Jones and his wife renewed peace after her years of pain.)^[16] The "sequel" track, "Fred Jones Part Two", is on Folds' first solo album, Rockin' the Suburbs.

The track "Steven's Last Night in Town" was written about Ben Folds' friend Stephen Short, a Grammy-Award-winning record producer and manager.^[17]

An early mix of "Song for the Dumped" appeared on the soundtrack album for the movie Mr. Wrong, but the song did not actually appear in the movie. The soundtrack was released on February 6, 1996, a full year before the release of "Whatever and Ever Amen".^[18]

Hidden tracks

The first pressing of Whatever and Ever Amen features a clip of an actual argument in the studio between Folds, Sledge and Jessee, inserted between "Brick" and "Song for the Dumped". Speaking to The Shrubbery in 1999, Folds said that the clip "was a painfully documented real argument that kept bringing up bad feelings. We decided to get rid of it and let the first pressings be collectors ... Better to keep the band together. It was ugly."^[19]

The first pressing featured another hidden track, on the album's last track, "Evaporated", and in the negative space of track 1 on the Digitally Remastered version. The clip is at a live concert, where band roadie Leo Overtoom yells out, "I've got your hidden track right here: Ben Folds is a fuckin' asshole!"^[20] A short video clip of this is featured in the video "A Video Portrait" released alongside the album.

Legacy

Nick Hornby writes one of his essays in the book 31 Songs about "Smoke".

Track listing

Original release

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces"	Ben Folds	3:52
2.	"Fair"	Folds	5:55
3.	"Brick"	Folds, Darren Jessee	4:43
4.	"Song for the Dumped"	Folds, Jessee	3:41
5.	"Selfless, Cold, and Composed"	Folds	6:10
6.	"Kate"	Folds, Jessee, Anna Goodman	3:14
7.	"Smoke"	Folds, Goodman	4:52
8.	"Cigarette"	Folds	1:38
9.	"Steven's Last Night in Town"	Folds	3:27
10.	"Battle of Who Could Care Less"	Folds	3:16
11.	"Missing the War"	Folds	4:19
12.	"Evaporated"	Folds	4:28

Bonus tracks on remastered version

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
13.	"Video Killed the Radio Star"	Geoff Downes, Trevor Horn, Bruce Woolley	3:40
14.	"For All the Pretty People"	Robert Sledge	3:21
15.	"Mitchell Lane"	Folds, Jessee	3:40
16.	"Theme from 'Dr. Pyser'" (Brendan O'Brien Studio version)	Folds	3:14
17.	"Air"	Folds, Jessee, Sledge	3:20
18.	"She Don't Use Jelly" (Lounge-A-Palooza version)	Wayne Coyne	4:11
19.	"Song for the Dumped (金返せ)" (Japanese version, translates to 'Give me back my money')	Folds, Jessee	5:03

Personnel

The band

• Ben Folds – piano, lead vocals, electric piano, melodica
• Darren Jessee – drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Robert Sledge – bass guitar, double bass, backing vocals

Additional musicians

• John Catchings – cello on 5 and 12
• Alicia Svigals – violin on 9
• Matt Darriau – clarinet on 9
• Frank London – trumpet on 9
• Caleb Southern – Hammond organ on 3
• Norwood Cheek – synthesizer space sound on 1

Production

• Caleb Southern – producer, engineer
• Ben Folds – producer, engineer
• Andy Wallace – mixing
• Steve Sisco – mixing assistant
• Howie Weinberg – mastering
• John Mark Painter – string arrangements
• Leigh Smiler – cover design
• Chris Stamey – Pro-Tools
• The Klezmatics – special contributor

Charts

Weekly charts Weekly chart performance for Whatever and Ever Amen Chart (1997–1998) Peak position Australian ARIA Albums Chart[21] 8 Canadian RPM Albums Chart[22] 48 Japanese Oricon Albums Chart[23] 6 UK Albums Chart[24] 30 US Billboard 200[25] 42

Year-end charts Year-end chart performance for Whatever and Ever Amen Chart (1997) Position Japanese Albums Chart[26] 156 Chart (1998) Position Australian Albums Chart[27] 48 US Billboard 200[28] 138

Certifications

Certifications for Whatever and Ever Amen

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[29]	Platinum	70,000^^
Canada (Music Canada)[30]	Gold	50,000^^
Japan (RIAJ)[31]	Platinum	200,000^^
United States (RIAA)[32]	Platinum	1,000,000^^
^^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

1. "10 Essential '90s Alt-Rock Albums". Treble. July 25, 2013. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
2. Owens, Thom. "Whatever and Ever Amen – Ben Folds Five". AllMusic. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
3. Caro, Mark (March 21, 1997). "Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen (Epic)". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
4. Larkin, Colin (2011). "Ben Folds Five". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
5. Willman, Chris (March 28, 1997). "Whatever and Ever Amen". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on October 9, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
6. Nichols, Natalie (March 16, 1997). "Ben Folds Five, 'Whatever and Ever Amen,' Sony 550 Music". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
7. Moody, Paul (March 1, 1997). "Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen". NME. Archived from the original on August 17, 2000. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
8. Schreiber, Ryan (March 22, 2005). "Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen". Pitchfork. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
9. "Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen". Q. No. 169. October 2000. p. 141.
10. Moon, Tom (March 17, 1997). "Ben Folds: Whatever and Ever Amen". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on November 24, 2007. Retrieved April 5, 2013.
11. Rotter, Jeffrey (May 1997). "Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen". Spin. Vol. 13, no. 2. p. 110. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
12. "Billboard". 29 March 1997.
13. Allison, John (November 23, 1996). "Ben Folds Five, Four, Three..." michaelbluejay.com. Sheffield Electronic Press.
14. "Battle of Who Could Care Less". Genius. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
15. Aitken, Kit. "Interview with Ben Folds (December 1997)". Rock's Backpages.(Subscription required.)
16. "Last months spared of agony from painkillers' side effects". The Tennessean. 15 September 1991. Retrieved 23 August 2020 – via Newspapers.com. Fred Jones was worn out from caring for his often screaming and crying wife during the day but he couldn't sleep at night for fear that she, in a stupor from drugs that didn't ease the pain, would set the house ablaze with a cigarette.
17. Shoger, Scott (October 28, 2011). "Review: Ben Folds with the ISO". NUVO. Archived from the original on October 29, 2011.
18. "Various - Mr. Wrong (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". Discogs. 1996. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
19. Brandt, Jessica (May 1999). "The Big, Exciting Interview with Ben Folds". The Shrubbery. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016.
20. "Issue #1019". The Magical Armchair. May 25, 1998.
21. "australian-charts.com Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen" (ASP). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
22. "Top Albums/CDs - Volume 66, No. 26" (PHP). RPM. March 23, 1998. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
23. "ベン・フォールズ・ファイヴ-リリース-ORICON STYLE-ミュージック" [Highest position and charting weeks of Whatever and Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five]. oricon.co.jp (in Japanese). Oricon Style. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
24. "The Official Charts Company - Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen" (PHP). Official Charts Company. Retrieved February 19, 2012.
25. "Ben Folds Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
26. Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005. Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.
27. "ARIA Charts - End of Year Charts - Top 100 Albums 1998". aria.com.au. Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved February 19, 2012.
28. "Billboard.BIZ - Year-end Charts - Billboard 200 - 1998". billboard.biz. Retrieved February 19, 2012.
29. "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 1998 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved February 18, 2012.
30. "Canadian album certifications – Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen". Music Canada. Retrieved February 18, 2012.
31. "RIAJ > The Record > June 1997 > Certified Awards (April 1997)" (PDF). Recording Industry Association of Japan (in Japanese). Retrieved February 2, 2014.
32. "American album certifications – Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved February 18, 2012.