Illuminated Manuscript Free Song Association Club

It feels really good to finish something. After we finished ‘Good To Be Born’ I put it on my stereo, hit play, and sat in front of a blank piece of paper…

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT FREE SONG ASSOCIATION CLUB

What Are You Waiting For
A cricket lived bedside my house last summer. He kept asking the same question over and over and over.

It’s Out
"Don’t wake me up... It’s warm in here." A sleepy melody gets plugged into 500 growling tube amps and becomes a pounding sledgehammer driving home a simple point: get out of your head, get out of your bed, get out of your house... All the good stuff is out there. Go get it. 13 bombs go off and finally you're awake.

Call Me Right Now
My old record player finally died. Just like a relationship. Or a band. So I drank a lot. And then I wrote a song. It’s a soundtrack to one long internal conversation trying to make sense of things.

Coming In For A Landing
I had a dream. I was flying... A World War I biplane... There I was, floating around and having a good time. I was wearing goggles playing hide and seek with clouds. Then I started looking down at the people and the houses and the dirt far below... and suddenly flying seemed like an empty pursuit — I missed being on the ground. It started getting cold and I wanted to land.

Triste Y Hermoso
My band is a gang of brutal detectives. Secret agents. We traffic in mysterious things. There are puzzles in this world that can’t be solved with logic. We use our guns and knives like musical instruments. We will open you. Evil does exist. Love songs can not save you. We will root them out... Watch them run.

Other Side Of Town
Never fall in love with a girl from the circus. She will break your heart flawlessly and beg you to come back for more. During the long days, you keep your head down and pretend that you’re not waiting for her to return. You fill your nights with gin and cigarettes... Her husband will eventually kill you with his knife. You know this but you won’t listen, will you?

In A Bookstore
She was a writer. She worked at a bookstore. She loved libraries. She knew words he would never know. She was brunette. She crushed him.

Anyway
A tree falls into a river a thousand miles upstream. Nobody notices. Through miles of snags, sand and rocks, the inessential wears away. Waterlogged and ground down, it travels toward her... Compression and carving do their work slowly. She is standing on the bank now – expecting nothing. At the perfect, predetermined moment, she looks up. All she sees is a tight knot of guitar, bass, drums, voices, memories and images floating past her, solid and tight... They call these “river teeth”. The dark sap of desire is all that saved it.

Summer
Right before I grabbed the steering wheel and swerved to avoid the oncoming truck, everything got very quiet. I looked over at her... Arm out the window, wind blowing her hair, watching miles of wheat stretch out, singing softly with Chet Baker... She didn’t know we were about to wreck.

“My funny valentine...”

My Heart Is A Wurtlizer
I’m a goof around you. I can’t walk right when you’re in the room. Nothing is in tune. This is my problem. Even the children are faking like they care. One part mixed metaphor, one part noisy rock hymn for things doomed to break. I’m sending you morse code love letters in my mind.

And Say My Goodbyes
An old recording of a guitar magically appears on the desk of an old house that feels empty. There is dust and dog hair everywhere. People lived here once. You walk into the living room and startled pigeons flap their wings, madly trying to fly out the open window. You sit down, leaning against the front door, and mentally re-arrange the furniture.