(no subject)
I decided to write out all the lyrics from my last record, along with explanations of what they mean. I know nobody cares, and lyrics are almost as embarrassing as poetry. Still, I think I wrote good lyrics on my last record, so I've decided that I'm proud of them.
Blue Paint (by Jason Unterreiner)
Overhead, the ceiling's painted blue and it is
barely kept just outside of our grasp and we might
reach it if we stood on tip toes on our chairs
And up ahead, and over every hill we cannot speculate
the pavement will continue we might find
ourselves lost in the endless blue paint void
Tumbling round and round
with the engine wining as we plummet down
tumbling round and round
with the wheels still spinning searching for the ground
Boundlessness is not the sort of thing we tend to celebrate
we like our bedroom walls that we can
decorate with fiction, block up our windows
and insulate our walls with the conception that
beyond our glass, beyond our yard and swing-set
it is none of our concern, beyond the apple tree...
Tumble round and round
and your limbs will flail in desperate search of ground
Tumble round and round
and there's nothing you can wrap your arms around
and when you break your voice no one will hear a sound.
Growing up in a small town, in my experience, made me feel isolated from the outside world, to a point where I almost didn't believe it existed. Literally interpreted, this song is suggesting that the universe is only made up of that which you have physically encountered, and nothing more. The line about pavement ending is based on road trips as a child. I used to interpret the horizon as the end of the world. I used to have nightmares about cars flying off of a cliff, one after another, and falling infinitely.
Literal Walls (by Jason Unterreiner)
So now let me set the scene
spent twelve hours watching TV
and there's nothing else that
I'd justify as a use of my time
Let me clarify what I mean
no literal walls around me and
there's no posted guards
as far as my window allows me to see
and I watch the History Chanel a lot
and I saw this special about
a prison that didn't have to worry about locks
'cause there's thousands of acres of forests
you could run if you want they'd even let you walk
cause there's nowhere you could go
exploring new frontiers of bored
there's no point in opening doors
and I haven't seen my
shoes in so long I don't know where they are
there's no point in looking for them
there is no foreseeable end to this
grand experiment testing effects of lack of stimulation
on subjects isolated and indifferent
and I watch the History Chanel a lot
and I saw this special about
the old west that told me you would have been shot
if you walked around carrying a gun at your side
like they always did in all of those old movies
but who wants to believe that?
This song is fairly straight forward. Living at my parents house in the summers between college terms, I had a chance to experience a level of boredom that most people could only speculate about. I did watch a lot of History Channel. There was a full day of programming about famous prisons, and one such episode focused on this weird low-security women's prison. There were no walls around it, but it was in the middle of an incredibly dense forest. The idea was that anyone who ran away would die in the woods before they reached freedom. It seemed to make a good analogy for my situation at the time. More than that, it was nearly my exact situation at the time. I had absolute freedom, but was trapped by sheer distance. The last chorus about the old west is intended to be something of a tension-breaking non-sequitur, but it's also about a classic childhood myth being laid-waste. Something about being bored in my parents living room at age 21 seemed to fit with that idea.
Even Square (by Jason Unterreiner)
Even square tiles of concrete
fill the holes the workers tore
and even square tiles of concrete
line the way to your front door
Even square tiles of concrete
in all directions stretching out
twist and turn down every side street
connect to every pastel house
On my list of things to do
regardless of how much I grow
gain access to a time machine
and kick my ass eight years ago
but even if they chopped off our heads
we could still sing these songs
the bloody stumps of our necks screaming
kiss me kiss me son of god
(If I get my place in this line
I could sit down where I choose
and if the world is on my side...)
Junior year of high school (Spring of 2000), I went on a school trip to Washington DC. While there, I met a girl named Alaina from Minneapolis. We bonded quickly over our shared love of They Might Be Giants. On our various bus trips around DC, we did sing alongs to some of our favorite TMBG songs, including "Kiss Me, Son of God." She told me about having seen them in concert, and how they introduced a song by saying "You could chop off our heads, and we'd play this with the bloody stumps of our necks." The line of backup vocals buried under the lead vocals is about waiting in line to get on the bus, and hoping I could sit next to her.
The line about wanting to go back in time and kick my ass is, I believe, universal.
The first two verses are from an earlier incarnation of the song, which was originally about suburban Minneapolis. "Even square tiles of concrete" is of course about sidewalks. The point of that is that at age 18, when I was in Minneapolis visiting Alaina, sidewalks were enough to make me feel alienated They didn't fit in with the way I knew reality. The idea that you could go from any point to any other without leaving a concrete path was overwhelming to me. An omitted line from the original demo concludes as follows: "Even square tiles of concrete in all directions stretching out, twist and turn down every side street, connect to every pastel house, but even square tiles of concrete will never lead me back to mine, I don't belong on pretty side streets, these pastel houses are not mine" I chose to abstract the song a little bit in order to avoid that excess emotional persecution. Also, it covers more ground this way.
Dolphin Stryker (by Tony Bitetti)
I didn't write this song. I can't tell you anything about the lyrics. I enjoy it very much though. Tony is a talented songwriter.
Made for Television (by Jason Unterreiner)
When the sun crashed through the window
you stood prepared to fight
and I watched it loose the contest
to be the hardest on my eyes
cause you had made its glow to be your own
and I could barely look at you
you're a white hot blur on my horizon
and you're fucking up my view
but the scenery grabs me by the eyes
and I have no choice but to stare
as your opponent walks through broken glass
and you're remaining standing there
and I don't know what I was expecting
but I'm surprised at what I get
some moments call for storm clouds
even if you don't get wet
so when the rays come like a semi truck
across the densely traffic-ed lane
if you would dive behind the Kustom stacks
then I would gladly do the same
cause I brought two copies of the script
so I can help you with your lines
this is the scene where you ask for a shoulder
and I offer use of mine
so in the shrapnel storm of broken glass
if you could find it in your heart
to embrace your made for TV role
and just play your god damned part
The alternate name for this song is "Shopping for Amps Part 3." This song evolved from an earlier song called "When the Sun Crashed Through the Window" Aside from a few identical lyrics, the songs were very different. Out of respect for the situation, I will not provide explicit details about the character in this song. It's about somebody who went through a serious situation, and my own difficulty in dealing with their reaction to it. I expected, and somewhat needed them to be upset about it, and they weren't. The original "Shopping for Amps" praises her for this. This song begs the character to act predictably, as though she were in a made for TV movie.
Corkboard (by Jason Unterreiner)
The stupid thing is I know just exactly what I'm up against
and no strategic planning is going to save me from defeat
and yet I'm stockpiling all my maps and .. and ammunition
and sailing towards the front line with no plans of retreat
and all because I was too dumb to play it cool
to refuse invitation
to adhere to simple rules
the kid with the empty corkboard is not prepared to fight
has no grasp of the etiquette
is dead upon first sight
when August came around I was too frustrated to follow through
I found enough restraint to stop begging for replies from you
choke the air supply behind our moving lips
let my pen scratch all the shapes it wants but let your eyes never interpret it
Like a stack of scratch off lotto tickets in the end
the few rewards I get from you couldn't pay for half of what I spend
the kid with the empty corkboard is sailing towards the land
with reckless disabandon he will run aground again
Of my greatest musical regrets, my failure to realize that "disabandon" is in absolutely no way an actual word is amongst the greatest.
This is another song that received massive revisions after it's initial writing. There were two full sets of lyrics written for this song. I ended up using half of each. The two verses are pretty much completely disconnected from one-another, but have some accidental threads of commonality.
The first verse is about the relatively mundane process of being shot down by a girl. It's about the kind of situation where you know you're doing exactly the wrong thing, and you do it anyway. The message is so universal that I can't actually remember which girl this was about anymore.
The second verse is about Alaina again (see "Even Square"). Summer after Junior Year I sent her a handful of letters and she never wrote back. It's about the process of realizing that my actions were pathetic.
"Kid with the empty corkboard" refers to myself. I had at one point wanted to write an entire record with myself as a character named that. It's probably better that I didn't. To understand the title, it's perhaps necessary to hang out in some college freshmen dorms. I always cringed at the idea of holding onto high school memories as though they had any relevance to me. As such, I had no photos of friends tacked to my corkboard. Though college and high school are a long ways away at this point, I still have a tendency to travel light, so far as social baggage is concerned.
Broken Machine (by Jason Unterreiner)
Up in the sky is airplanes and clouds
not the people who died, cause they're in the ground
and they're all still alive, just not at the moment
and so it goes
I think I agree, for lack of a better theory
I wouldn't know, but it makes me happy
and that's all that counts, it keeps out the ulcers
I get from thinking
that hell is a place that someone would send me
for having my doubts about magic zombies
and that's not to say I've something against it
that's not what I mean
but I can accept when you flee the scene
you're a broken machine just an empty body
but why should that mean the things you said yesterday
cease to matter?
And you could suggest that I'm full of shit
because I rarely let myself think about it
and these are the songs I refuse to write
I can't be exploitative
but this is the truth and it doesn't seem sane
just to block out the shit that envelopes my brain
and I have earned the right, I'm not screaming for pity
Just acknowledgment
You're alive, just not at the moment
and that shouldn't negate all that came before it
you're always alive in 30 years prior
and so it goes.
Originally this song had something like one or two extra verses in it. I recorded this live, guitar and vocals in one take, and I forgot to sing a few of them. It turns out they weren't important.
This song is about my take on death as it applies to my late friend Mark. I had banned myself from touching on the issue of his death for years. This was my first attempt at doing it. As such, some lines are about that hesitation. The only thing I think that really might need explanation in this song is the idea, "you're alive, just not at the moment." Anyone who's read Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut probably gets that I was making a slight reference with "So it goes," For those of you who haven't, the idea posed in that book is that time is an illusion created by our limited perspective. All moments occur simultaneously, but we are only free to see one at a time. By that logic, everyone who's ever lived continues to live, but tied to their specific moments in time. Outside of a fantastic science-fiction concept, I have found this to be a comforting way to view the world, and one that can be understood in real terms. A person's influence should not be negated by their sudden absence. Everyone who puts a dent on reality possesses their own gravity. That is to say, things on either side of that dent will follow an altered path because of it.
I was a total chickenshit when I wrote this song, and I included a backpedaling line about religion. "That's not to say I've something against it, that's not what I mean."
Every time I've played this song live, I've changed it to, "That's not to say I've something against it, but yes I do."
That Specific Moment (by Jason Unterreiner)
Everyone applauded then
regardless of the outcome
in that specific moment
in that specific moment when it
seemed that your ambition
made up for lack of talent
it all seemed so exciting
in that specific moment
but it seems that since you got the hang of it
nobody whats to put up with your shit
and now that they are onto you
you can't get their attention, you just
force the elevation
of drunken conversation
and now that they all eye the door
just what the hell is the stage for
it just gets so depressing
it just gets so depressing
so you make it clear you'd rather not be there
and somehow you still expect them all to care
the clapter never wavered when
the talent was emerging
in that specific moment
in that specific moment when it
seemed that your potential
was limitless and reachable
in that specific moment
in that specific moment
Note: "Clapter" is not a real word. I made it up at a Ted Leo show. It means "applause", but specifically involving clapping.
When I first started playing open mic nights with a backing tracks, I was utterly terrible. I couldn't sing, I couldn't play guitar, and my songs weren't very good. Having said that, people LOVED it. I was a hit. It seemed that as I improved in ability, my audience lost that enthusiasm. As the audience lost their enthusiasm, I lost mine, and it all spiraled to hell. The idea here, I think, is that vitality is often a fleeting, and talent is an easy crutch to lean on. Sometimes, often, the best art comes from those with the least idea as to what the hell they are doing.
Blue Paint (by Jason Unterreiner)
Overhead, the ceiling's painted blue and it is
barely kept just outside of our grasp and we might
reach it if we stood on tip toes on our chairs
And up ahead, and over every hill we cannot speculate
the pavement will continue we might find
ourselves lost in the endless blue paint void
Tumbling round and round
with the engine wining as we plummet down
tumbling round and round
with the wheels still spinning searching for the ground
Boundlessness is not the sort of thing we tend to celebrate
we like our bedroom walls that we can
decorate with fiction, block up our windows
and insulate our walls with the conception that
beyond our glass, beyond our yard and swing-set
it is none of our concern, beyond the apple tree...
Tumble round and round
and your limbs will flail in desperate search of ground
Tumble round and round
and there's nothing you can wrap your arms around
and when you break your voice no one will hear a sound.
Growing up in a small town, in my experience, made me feel isolated from the outside world, to a point where I almost didn't believe it existed. Literally interpreted, this song is suggesting that the universe is only made up of that which you have physically encountered, and nothing more. The line about pavement ending is based on road trips as a child. I used to interpret the horizon as the end of the world. I used to have nightmares about cars flying off of a cliff, one after another, and falling infinitely.
Literal Walls (by Jason Unterreiner)
So now let me set the scene
spent twelve hours watching TV
and there's nothing else that
I'd justify as a use of my time
Let me clarify what I mean
no literal walls around me and
there's no posted guards
as far as my window allows me to see
and I watch the History Chanel a lot
and I saw this special about
a prison that didn't have to worry about locks
'cause there's thousands of acres of forests
you could run if you want they'd even let you walk
cause there's nowhere you could go
exploring new frontiers of bored
there's no point in opening doors
and I haven't seen my
shoes in so long I don't know where they are
there's no point in looking for them
there is no foreseeable end to this
grand experiment testing effects of lack of stimulation
on subjects isolated and indifferent
and I watch the History Chanel a lot
and I saw this special about
the old west that told me you would have been shot
if you walked around carrying a gun at your side
like they always did in all of those old movies
but who wants to believe that?
This song is fairly straight forward. Living at my parents house in the summers between college terms, I had a chance to experience a level of boredom that most people could only speculate about. I did watch a lot of History Channel. There was a full day of programming about famous prisons, and one such episode focused on this weird low-security women's prison. There were no walls around it, but it was in the middle of an incredibly dense forest. The idea was that anyone who ran away would die in the woods before they reached freedom. It seemed to make a good analogy for my situation at the time. More than that, it was nearly my exact situation at the time. I had absolute freedom, but was trapped by sheer distance. The last chorus about the old west is intended to be something of a tension-breaking non-sequitur, but it's also about a classic childhood myth being laid-waste. Something about being bored in my parents living room at age 21 seemed to fit with that idea.
Even Square (by Jason Unterreiner)
Even square tiles of concrete
fill the holes the workers tore
and even square tiles of concrete
line the way to your front door
Even square tiles of concrete
in all directions stretching out
twist and turn down every side street
connect to every pastel house
On my list of things to do
regardless of how much I grow
gain access to a time machine
and kick my ass eight years ago
but even if they chopped off our heads
we could still sing these songs
the bloody stumps of our necks screaming
kiss me kiss me son of god
(If I get my place in this line
I could sit down where I choose
and if the world is on my side...)
Junior year of high school (Spring of 2000), I went on a school trip to Washington DC. While there, I met a girl named Alaina from Minneapolis. We bonded quickly over our shared love of They Might Be Giants. On our various bus trips around DC, we did sing alongs to some of our favorite TMBG songs, including "Kiss Me, Son of God." She told me about having seen them in concert, and how they introduced a song by saying "You could chop off our heads, and we'd play this with the bloody stumps of our necks." The line of backup vocals buried under the lead vocals is about waiting in line to get on the bus, and hoping I could sit next to her.
The line about wanting to go back in time and kick my ass is, I believe, universal.
The first two verses are from an earlier incarnation of the song, which was originally about suburban Minneapolis. "Even square tiles of concrete" is of course about sidewalks. The point of that is that at age 18, when I was in Minneapolis visiting Alaina, sidewalks were enough to make me feel alienated They didn't fit in with the way I knew reality. The idea that you could go from any point to any other without leaving a concrete path was overwhelming to me. An omitted line from the original demo concludes as follows: "Even square tiles of concrete in all directions stretching out, twist and turn down every side street, connect to every pastel house, but even square tiles of concrete will never lead me back to mine, I don't belong on pretty side streets, these pastel houses are not mine" I chose to abstract the song a little bit in order to avoid that excess emotional persecution. Also, it covers more ground this way.
Dolphin Stryker (by Tony Bitetti)
I didn't write this song. I can't tell you anything about the lyrics. I enjoy it very much though. Tony is a talented songwriter.
Made for Television (by Jason Unterreiner)
When the sun crashed through the window
you stood prepared to fight
and I watched it loose the contest
to be the hardest on my eyes
cause you had made its glow to be your own
and I could barely look at you
you're a white hot blur on my horizon
and you're fucking up my view
but the scenery grabs me by the eyes
and I have no choice but to stare
as your opponent walks through broken glass
and you're remaining standing there
and I don't know what I was expecting
but I'm surprised at what I get
some moments call for storm clouds
even if you don't get wet
so when the rays come like a semi truck
across the densely traffic-ed lane
if you would dive behind the Kustom stacks
then I would gladly do the same
cause I brought two copies of the script
so I can help you with your lines
this is the scene where you ask for a shoulder
and I offer use of mine
so in the shrapnel storm of broken glass
if you could find it in your heart
to embrace your made for TV role
and just play your god damned part
The alternate name for this song is "Shopping for Amps Part 3." This song evolved from an earlier song called "When the Sun Crashed Through the Window" Aside from a few identical lyrics, the songs were very different. Out of respect for the situation, I will not provide explicit details about the character in this song. It's about somebody who went through a serious situation, and my own difficulty in dealing with their reaction to it. I expected, and somewhat needed them to be upset about it, and they weren't. The original "Shopping for Amps" praises her for this. This song begs the character to act predictably, as though she were in a made for TV movie.
Corkboard (by Jason Unterreiner)
The stupid thing is I know just exactly what I'm up against
and no strategic planning is going to save me from defeat
and yet I'm stockpiling all my maps and .. and ammunition
and sailing towards the front line with no plans of retreat
and all because I was too dumb to play it cool
to refuse invitation
to adhere to simple rules
the kid with the empty corkboard is not prepared to fight
has no grasp of the etiquette
is dead upon first sight
when August came around I was too frustrated to follow through
I found enough restraint to stop begging for replies from you
choke the air supply behind our moving lips
let my pen scratch all the shapes it wants but let your eyes never interpret it
Like a stack of scratch off lotto tickets in the end
the few rewards I get from you couldn't pay for half of what I spend
the kid with the empty corkboard is sailing towards the land
with reckless disabandon he will run aground again
Of my greatest musical regrets, my failure to realize that "disabandon" is in absolutely no way an actual word is amongst the greatest.
This is another song that received massive revisions after it's initial writing. There were two full sets of lyrics written for this song. I ended up using half of each. The two verses are pretty much completely disconnected from one-another, but have some accidental threads of commonality.
The first verse is about the relatively mundane process of being shot down by a girl. It's about the kind of situation where you know you're doing exactly the wrong thing, and you do it anyway. The message is so universal that I can't actually remember which girl this was about anymore.
The second verse is about Alaina again (see "Even Square"). Summer after Junior Year I sent her a handful of letters and she never wrote back. It's about the process of realizing that my actions were pathetic.
"Kid with the empty corkboard" refers to myself. I had at one point wanted to write an entire record with myself as a character named that. It's probably better that I didn't. To understand the title, it's perhaps necessary to hang out in some college freshmen dorms. I always cringed at the idea of holding onto high school memories as though they had any relevance to me. As such, I had no photos of friends tacked to my corkboard. Though college and high school are a long ways away at this point, I still have a tendency to travel light, so far as social baggage is concerned.
Broken Machine (by Jason Unterreiner)
Up in the sky is airplanes and clouds
not the people who died, cause they're in the ground
and they're all still alive, just not at the moment
and so it goes
I think I agree, for lack of a better theory
I wouldn't know, but it makes me happy
and that's all that counts, it keeps out the ulcers
I get from thinking
that hell is a place that someone would send me
for having my doubts about magic zombies
and that's not to say I've something against it
that's not what I mean
but I can accept when you flee the scene
you're a broken machine just an empty body
but why should that mean the things you said yesterday
cease to matter?
And you could suggest that I'm full of shit
because I rarely let myself think about it
and these are the songs I refuse to write
I can't be exploitative
but this is the truth and it doesn't seem sane
just to block out the shit that envelopes my brain
and I have earned the right, I'm not screaming for pity
Just acknowledgment
You're alive, just not at the moment
and that shouldn't negate all that came before it
you're always alive in 30 years prior
and so it goes.
Originally this song had something like one or two extra verses in it. I recorded this live, guitar and vocals in one take, and I forgot to sing a few of them. It turns out they weren't important.
This song is about my take on death as it applies to my late friend Mark. I had banned myself from touching on the issue of his death for years. This was my first attempt at doing it. As such, some lines are about that hesitation. The only thing I think that really might need explanation in this song is the idea, "you're alive, just not at the moment." Anyone who's read Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut probably gets that I was making a slight reference with "So it goes," For those of you who haven't, the idea posed in that book is that time is an illusion created by our limited perspective. All moments occur simultaneously, but we are only free to see one at a time. By that logic, everyone who's ever lived continues to live, but tied to their specific moments in time. Outside of a fantastic science-fiction concept, I have found this to be a comforting way to view the world, and one that can be understood in real terms. A person's influence should not be negated by their sudden absence. Everyone who puts a dent on reality possesses their own gravity. That is to say, things on either side of that dent will follow an altered path because of it.
I was a total chickenshit when I wrote this song, and I included a backpedaling line about religion. "That's not to say I've something against it, that's not what I mean."
Every time I've played this song live, I've changed it to, "That's not to say I've something against it, but yes I do."
That Specific Moment (by Jason Unterreiner)
Everyone applauded then
regardless of the outcome
in that specific moment
in that specific moment when it
seemed that your ambition
made up for lack of talent
it all seemed so exciting
in that specific moment
but it seems that since you got the hang of it
nobody whats to put up with your shit
and now that they are onto you
you can't get their attention, you just
force the elevation
of drunken conversation
and now that they all eye the door
just what the hell is the stage for
it just gets so depressing
it just gets so depressing
so you make it clear you'd rather not be there
and somehow you still expect them all to care
the clapter never wavered when
the talent was emerging
in that specific moment
in that specific moment when it
seemed that your potential
was limitless and reachable
in that specific moment
in that specific moment
Note: "Clapter" is not a real word. I made it up at a Ted Leo show. It means "applause", but specifically involving clapping.
When I first started playing open mic nights with a backing tracks, I was utterly terrible. I couldn't sing, I couldn't play guitar, and my songs weren't very good. Having said that, people LOVED it. I was a hit. It seemed that as I improved in ability, my audience lost that enthusiasm. As the audience lost their enthusiasm, I lost mine, and it all spiraled to hell. The idea here, I think, is that vitality is often a fleeting, and talent is an easy crutch to lean on. Sometimes, often, the best art comes from those with the least idea as to what the hell they are doing.