In April 2023, Dick Prall brought a string quartet to CSPS Hall in Cedar Rapids. Billed as Dickie and the Cask Strength Quartet, the evening was a setlist of stringed versions of songs from Prall’s career to that point. Towards the end of the evening, he announced that he wanted to try out some new songs. One of them was “Shakes You.”
“Shakes You” is the opening track on Dickie’s new EP Headful of Hiss, which released on Nov. 29. The lush, sparkling strings lift an admiring tribute to someone who seems happily unconcerned and out-of-step with those around them. In lieu of a chorus, the song props up the repeated refrain “No one ever shakes you.” At the halfway mark Prall sings, “It seems that you’re the only one/To ever get what they have due,” and the song switches dramatically from sweetly plucked and sung to an anthemic, building 4/4 march with electric slide guitar and drums.
Dick Prall’s career spans eight releases and a few singles going back to 1998. While they vary stylistically, they show a progressive refining of Prall’s keen sense of vocal harmonies and melody. Prall continues his considerable pop songwriting flex with Headful of Hiss. Taken in whole, the collection of five songs shows a singular approach, with each song sharing his signature vision of composition with hooks that go forever.
Prall delivers some of his best vocals on this release. His rock falsetto is to die for, giving Justin Vernon a run for his money. The opening of “February Filled” is a great example of this. “Speed into something/I know I want to/Speed into something/I know I want to cry out loud.” It’s classic, sadly beautiful Dickie. The song wraps up with a “Bittersweet Symphony”-style bloom of strings on the way out, with deceptively brightly sung “doo doo doo doo doos” belying biting sarcasm.
In 2021, Dickie released one of my favorite singles, “Stack It” which makes its appearance here, albeit a very different version. This Spoon-influenced song takes a swing at a politician who has been known to throw fits around unfair treatment. The version which wraps up Headful of Hiss has had all the edges sanded and polished to a fine pop sheen. Delivered in a Latin time with honest-to-goodness string swells and plucks, and grand piano befitting Ferrante and Teicher, it does fit better on the EP than the original would have and manages to deliver a subtle but more biting commentary.
At the CSPS show, Prall prefaced “Shakes You” by asking if the crowd would like to sing along with the “No one ever shakes you” refrain. Everyone joined in. Great songs have the power to bring people together, and that night the world and its concerns outside of the venue slipped away, if only for a few minutes.
