''Whatever and Ever Amen'' is the second

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

Ben Folds Five Ben Folds Five is an American alternative rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The group comprises Ben Folds (lead vocals, piano), Robert Sledge (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Darren Jessee (drums, backing vocals). The gro ...

, released in 1997. Three singles were released from the album, including the lead single, "

Battle of Who Could Care Less "Battle of Who Could Care Less" is a song performed by Ben Folds Five, released as part of their 1997 album '' Whatever and Ever Amen'', written by Ben Folds. It peaked at #26 in the UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled ...

", which received significant airplay on alternative radio and on MTV, and peaked at #26 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

and #22 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks (1988–2009) and Alternative Songs (2009–2020)) is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in ''Billboard'' magazine since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-played ...

chart, and the band's biggest hit, "

Brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

", which was a top-40 song in numerous countries. A

remaster Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

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 The Buggles were an English new wave band formed in London in 1977 by singer and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes. They are best known for their 1979 debut single " Video Killed the Radio Star", which topped the UK Singles Cha ...

song "

Video Killed the Radio Star "Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley in 1979. It was recorded concurrently by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for their album '' English Garden'' an ...

," 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''. The title ''Whatever and Ever Amen'' comes from a line in the song "

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."

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 ''The Tennessean'' (known until 1972 as ''The Nashville Tennessean'') is a daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett, ...

'', is actually about the implanted

epidural Epidural administration (from Ancient Greek ἐπί, , upon" + ''dura mater'') is a method of medication administration in which a medicine is injected into the epidural space around the spinal cord. The epidural route is used by physicians an ...

catheter In medicine, a catheter (/ˈkæθətər/) is a thin tube made from medical grade materials serving a broad range of functions. Catheters are medical devices that can be inserted in the body to treat diseases or perform a surgical procedure. Cath ...

procedure that brought Jones and his wife renewed peace after her years of pain.) The "sequel" track, "Fred Jones Part Two," is on Folds' first solo album, ''

Rockin' the Suburbs ''Rockin' the Suburbs'' is the debut studio album by American alternative rock singer-songwriter Ben Folds. His first solo album after leaving his band Ben Folds Five, ''Rockin' the Suburbs'' was recorded in Adelaide, Australia, where Folds was ...

''. The track "Steven's Last Night in Town" was written about Ben Folds' friend Stephen Short, a Grammy-Award-winning record producer and manager. An early mix of "Song for the Dumped" appeared on the soundtrack album for the movie "

Mr. Wrong ''Mr. Wrong'' is a 1996 American romantic black comedy film starring Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Pullman. It was a critical failure and box office bomb. DeGeneres used to mention it occasionally in her talk show, ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'', pok ...

," 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."

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." The first pressing featured another

hidden track In the field of recorded music, a hidden track (sometimes called a ghost track, secret track or unlisted track) is a song or a piece of audio that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, LP record, or other recorded medium, in such a way as t ...

, on the album's last track, "Evaporated," and in the

negative space Negative space, in art, is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and s ...

of track 1 on the Digitally Remastered version. The clip is at a live concert, where band

roadie The road crew (or roadies) are the technicians or support personnel who travel with a band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians. This catc ...

Leo Overtoom yells out, "I've got your hidden track right here: Ben Folds is a fuckin' asshole!" A short video clip of this is featured in the video "A Video Portrait" released alongside the album.

Legacy

Nick Hornby Nicholas Peter John Hornby (born 17 April 1957) is an English writer and lyricist. He is best known for his memoir ''Fever Pitch'' and novels '' High Fidelity'' and '' About a Boy'', all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work f ...

writes one of his essays in the book ''

31 Songs ''Songbook'' (published in the United Kingdom as ''31 Songs'') is a 2002 collection of 26 essays by English writer Nick Hornby about songs and (more often) the particular emotional resonance they carry for him. In the UK, Sony released a stand- ...

'' about "Smoke".

Track listing

Personnel

The band

Ben Folds Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and composer, who is the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., since May 2017. Folds was th ...

Piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usual ...

Darren Jessee Darren Michael Jessee is an American drummer and singer-songwriter best known as a member of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five. Jessee has also worked as an instrumentalist for Sharon Van Etten and Hiss Golden Messenger and released two ...

Drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

Robert Sledge Robert Sledge (born March 9, 1968) is an American musician, best known for his work with Ben Folds Five. Biography Robert Sledge began playing bass guitar at the age of eleven. His brother was playing guitar at his house so he also learned how ...

Bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

, backing vocals

Additional musicians

*John Catchings -

Cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

on 5 and 12 * Alicia Svigals -

Violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

on 9 *

Matt Darriau Matt Darriau (born in Bloomington, Indiana), is a Balkan, klezmer, Celtic and jazz musician. His most notable work is with Balkan rhythm quartet Paradox Trio, The Klezmatics, and Orange Then Blue. Other musical projects include Ballin' the Jac ...

Clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

on 9 *

Frank London Frank London (born 1958 in New York) is an American klezmer trumpeter who also plays jazz and world music. Early life London was born to a Reform Jewish family and grew up in New York and Connecticut. He started playing the trumpet in fourt ...

Trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

on 9 *

Caleb Southern Caleb Southern (born December 26, 1969) is an American professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, musician and record producer. He has worked with Ben Folds Five, Fear of Pop and Archers of Loaf. As of 2002, he was a member of Partners Ag ...

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

on 3 *

Norwood Cheek Norwood J. Cheek, Jr., aka Norwood Cheek, is an American director, producer, and editor of film and television. He is known for his music videos and his work with Super 8 film. Background Cheek is from Eden, North Carolina and graduated from ...

Synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

space sound on 1

Production

- Producer,

Engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

- Producer, Engineer * Andy Wallace - Mixing *Steve Sisco - Mixing Assistant *Howie Weinberg - Mastering *

John Mark Painter John Mark Painter (born c. 1967) is an American multi-instrumental musician, composer and arranger. He is best known for his role, with his wife, singer Fleming McWilliams, in the rock duo, Fleming and John. Painter grew up in Miami, and beg ...

- String arrangements *Leigh Smiler - Cover Design *

Chris Stamey Christopher Charles Stamey (born December 6, 1954) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. After a brief time playing with Alex Chilton, as well as Mitch Easter under the name Sneakers, Stamey formed The dB's with Peter ...

- Pro-Tools *

The Klezmatics The Klezmatics are an American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins. They have ...

- Special Contributor

Certifications

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Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whatever And Ever Amen Ben Folds Five albums 1997 albums Albums produced by Caleb Southern Albums produced by Ben Folds