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Redemption (out of print)

by Tom Jessen's Dimestore Outfit

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1.
2.
Eating that slice of moon from an open car window made you howl let's see how fast this thing can go put it to the ground the radio's kinda busted you gotta mess with it a bit to get a good sound pull it over let's get lost in the cornfields with that bottle of royal crown no sign of life on either horizon we lay down on that dividing line it cuts us in half go forward or go back either way just don't seem right what about Jenny you left her standing alone back there she'll wonder where you are you say you'd love to lie there forever idled there on the tar I'd give 500 dollars for something true everything I got in this pocket, change too I keep thinking about when she slipped her hand in mine hard to find anything that seemed more right
3.
Gabrielle 02:50
I was so pumped I called my girl Gabrielle I told her I was picking her up on my new motorcycle And we're gonna drive around town feel so high, nothings gonna bring us down Sneaking in the night trying not to make a sound sitting in the dark kissing on the couch oh I love my girl Gabrielle oh I love my new motorcy oh I love my new Gabrielle oh I love my girl motorcy
4.
Stop the car I'll ask this guy where we are you said we can't go on like this Well I think it's fun just driving in the sun happy to vacate the nest That town was a dead end where everyone tried to pretend that they weren't all chained and bound well I'm tired of not knowing where I'm going but at least we're not sitting around Throw your stuff in the back of my car don't leave your regards then no one will know where we are every road's right when you don't have a clue but the best thing now Judy's just being with you The pavement's there for anyone who dares making it on their own with what little money we got we can do one hellava lot but we gotta find a new home Can you see the lights coming up this town is ours for the taken the people back there were going nowhere the town was shitforsaken so come on Judy, you know I love you truly you're driving my car and I'm playing your guitar singing country music to you all day long
5.
'57 Chevy 03:03
Surrounded by snow and friends I don't know I drive buy that 57 Chevy in the lot I'm putting in my time but it's too slow going by pretending to get wise and quit my job Gotta enough money to buy that 57 turn the radio on and I'm just floating over the pavement ain't nothing back there I haven't already found Bobby's found work as a day time cook but that don't make him any less lost as me behind the black barred prison lacking in decision easy to settle for blind picket fence security Judy's scared thinking she's in love with someone else Her pictures lying shotgun next to me I'm gonna write her a letter, telling her maybe it's better than a straight jacket smile in the passenger's seat
6.
TJ - guitar/vocal Eric Straumanis - upright bass Darren Matthews - lead guitar Marty Letz - pedal steel Eric Griffin - drums/percussion Helen and Mary Neumann - violins
7.
I bought a 69 dodge dart it cleaned me out dry raining so hard the wipers hypnotize left a wake of leaves, a girl on the sly a chained up mutt, and the sheriff sleepy-eyed I'm gonna hide under leaves and live in sidewalk cracks my double take ghosts are straining their necks tie your shoelaces tight, spit on your soles wooden nickel, pinch of salt, do as yer told do as yer told, do as yer told mama had a baby as his head popped off mama had a baby and his head popped
8.
with a half a pack of smokes and a hand shake from my folks I left that ol' town buried scarecrow phone poles but I set the cruise control these Iowa plates tell the best story with my feet on the dash and tilted rear view mirror past it seemed to make sense at the time I thought there'd be a place somewhere with a rail on the stairs to keep me from falling over the side Well I'm in a new place but wearing the same old lost face I guess it don't matter where you go on the street in the rain well it all seems the same I guess there's no place unlike home
9.
well my hometown paper's sitting in the box today there's this article on the 3rd page saying my old high school girl's getting married well my higher hopes are like bicycle spokes we go round and round she's become just another product of prop and circumstance The girl I'm with now says I couldn't write my way out of a paper town like this I'm an old dog at 23 scraping for new tricks Well my bordeom reminds me I'm getting old looking out on a city I don't know newspaper clippings they've turned scared yellow The romantics talk semantics only after a couple glasses of vintage wine and me I'm just trying to deal people by the handful are clinging to intangibles I'm envious When did I leave my niavety to the previous Charile's gone to Minneapolis He said he'd save a place for us sad to think that time and place has digested Everybody's passing through my life like shots that almost hit Well I wish they would've wasted me away Spending too much time with drunks who had their time story for everyday of the week their half opened eyelids and yellow stained fingertips so quiet sometimes you can hear their bones creak odds are slim I'll be seeing them again everybody's had their day not too much to think about and even less to say back in the midwest there's boys causing incidents where back seat drivers rule they got all night to kill the book of murphy's law beneath the tires of their cars driving far away It was her fireflies eyes that tripped me back into summer back when I took a philips screwdriver and carved my name in the soft brick by the popcorn stand then I headed back down to the carnival and watched all the lights and sounds spray out all over the town like some kind of unmanned fire hose that nobody wanted to control
10.
On the Cuff 03:03
TJ - guitar, vocal Tom Dostel - vibraphone Eric Grffin - drums Eric Straumanis - bass Darren Matthews - lead guitar
11.
I hang up my apron and then I slide on my coat hope the bus ain't too late it's my only ride home well my old man left me his boots they're covered with grime they're buried in the closet but tonight they'll spit shine I drove those slave wages throughout the week and nothing could be better than letting go free this town's full of has-beens before their time well I ride my uncertainty like a hobo train waiting for that boxcar door to slide a hip pocket pint fuels thoughts of outside settling for a crack of Saturday night The lights always bleed when the townies scoop the loop Gus bruises with a gillette shave twitch and a red light punch lead foot and Alton hasn't moved since the last time I was here He's stinking of cigars and whiskey sours growing roots and a five o'clock beard and the girl's are painted like clowns playing the show their three ring shenanigans assures a back seat ride home and nobody here is thinking about Sunday night Well fate may deal me the darkest of deaths and I suppose that'll have to suit me just fine the boys are all here and it's in these moments I fear that there will never be another Saturday night well there it went another Saturday night
12.
Sanctuary 05:52
mom keeps sending me rosaries the world's barely standing on wooden legs now activist complaints and atrocities there's dust collecting on my window blinds In Iowa you can see for miles the sun coming out it's a good day for a drive everything looks fine behind this windshield when you're driving by but everybody's got their two cents worthless leave this town, windows down tonight saopbox strangers are boring me with anecdotes and confessional soliloquies talk about the weather shit they're waxing hurricanes tornado gut wrench, well were due for some rain old friends stopping by unexpectedly just more explanations I'm not up for I don't have the passion to recap and convert through silent reactions I can see I was expected more leave this town with the windows down tonight one by one all my heroes turned sour they say your taste buds are the first to go you just can't trust much when each day something else crumbles no need to know much when you're all alone everybody's clutching better ideas idled in pockets the devil's playing with lint balls these days I can't even hear myself think over their talking would-be cooks with hand-written recipes leave this town with the windows down four wheel sanctuary now all I need in my room is a broom and I'll keep it crystal clean
13.
you wonder why I can never look you in the eye well I've memorized every pattern on this floor Her eyes are so naked I feel as if I'm intruding if I look at them too long I projected your deceptive emotion like a summer vacation slide show but I guess there was something else behind that holiday smile your ballet mirages and my one way economics fall prey to wistful invention I'll supply the expectations and demand that you be true well I know I'm talking cliches and turning verbal tricks but even the cheesiest love songs in a bar turn profound when your three sheets to the wind I could change this whiskey to water but to you it's just pathetic heresy sometimes when there's nothing left to do I sit stacked and smoke myself silly and make myself break down because i guess i feel it's the thing I should do I could toss around the word love like a boomerang but I lost my catcher's mask you wear your skepticism with rubber boots and chastity wrapped in a cast and maybe the mailbox might hold simple salvation and i've seen the future in a crystal glass of beer and I ain't pretending that understand a thing but this ignorance is blistering but open wounds dry clean
14.
Looking for the big trees and crooked sidewalks the hideaway porch that sees all cunning relics of autumn street corners sitting incognito under amber waves of leaves spider branches hanging high in the Indian wind I can feel your soft shoulders under flannel whispers with a dream in my hand I can build my blanket, tombstone, feather there's a table against a window my jackknife pathos hiding in the shade and from behind the screen door it's sounding like a victrola kind of rain listen to the rain
15.
Prodigal Son 03:50
Well I look to the sky but all I see is that big blue umbrella keeping cathartic rains from falling on my head silhouette snippets and thoughts like crickets making all kinds of racket with rationalizations of time well spent my heads been filled with blanks and bullets and I don't have control of either one all of these head wounds are self inflicted and maliciously situated like that lonely chair propped up against heavens door knob self-induced religions bear fruit only when faith falls floundering well I've waded through false beliefs and seeping skin from the girls all along the streets balancing the bible and the American dream on my head with out standing debts in the passage of time but old photographs are epitaphs with a little grace and insight I've sen it on my faces strained redemption with all it's blemishes being backed by popular demand well what good are these heroes riding ideas on downward spirals their words are from no language I can use here 30 miles shy of Omaha I wonder wondered I just done then I realize that I'm finally living in the moment this highway's pink with conversion Lord have mercy for these home town citadels the prodigal son is home won't you wish him well
16.

about

The debut album from TJDO paints a song cycle about searching. There are characters here in small towns, cars and bars all under the umbrella of wanting...something. The songs themselves evoke a rural, earthy, mid-western atmosphere. The sounds are hybrids from classic Rock and Roll and Pop to Country music, Folk and Blues. A pedal steel resides next to a vibraphone and string quartet. A salvation army type brass band gives way to accordion and banjo. Each song refers back to the one you just heard, making the linearity of the album difficult to pick out any one track on it's own. It is a holistic affair much like reading a novel.

credits

released October 1, 1996

All songs by Tom Jessen

Eric Griffin - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Marty Letz - pedal steel
Darren Matthews - guitar, banjo
Eric Straumanis - bass
Tom Jessen - vocals, guitar, keyboards, trombone, harmonica

"the additionals"

Tom Dostal - vibraphone
Kate Dykstra - cello on "Highway 3 West"
Amber Maxwell - french horn
Geoff McAlister - tuba
Dave Moore - accordion
Helen Neumann - violin
Mary Neumann - violin
Sarah Price - backing vocals on "No Place Unlike Home"
Emily Reck - cello
Brent Sandy - trumpet
Dave Zollo - keyboards on "Do As Yer Told"

produced by Tom Jessen and John Svec
recorded at Minstrel Studios, Iowa City, IA

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