BIANCA BOURGEOIS
ANTHONY D’AMATO
If you spend an entire song telling someone you’re no longer in love with her, chances are, you’re probably still in love. That’s, at least, how I interpret Anthony D’Amato’s new video for his song “Was a Time,” in which he sings at a wedding as slow-motion chaos breaks out all around him.
“There was a time that I loved you, I don’t love you anymore,” he keeps singing, in a Dylanesque drawl, presumably about the woman who is getting married (to someone else). Finally, at the end of the video, he breaks out of his daze, makes his stand, and becomes part of the chaos.
D’Amato, who grew up in Blairstown and attended Princeton University (where Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon was one of his mentors), released two albums independently before putting out The Shipwreck From the Shore (which includes “Was a Time”) last year on the New West label, and boosting his profile quite a bit with it.
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. To see the entire list, click here.
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