300 Songs

I came out of oblivion

With two hit MTV songs

So Jackson quit his day job

Process serving Michael Milken

I bought a house out in the country

With my publishing advance

Jeff Ayeroff said

See I knew you’d write a hit by accident

Stream or order this album here. 
This song covers the 12 years Cracker spent with Virgin Records under a major label deal. It begins by referencing the fact that our first record was immediately played on the radio—in fact, MTV started airing “Teen Angst” a couple of weeks before the album even came out, which is rare for a new band. That kind of thing happens all the time for big acts, but not for newcomers. But let’s back up a minute.

The last you heard from me, I was cutting demos and struggling to get the label to let us into the studio to record our album. Eventually that happened and we managed to record an album in a fairly efficient six weeks. But before that, between submitting our demos and starting the album, there was a lot of time being flat broke—all of us, including our manager, Jackson Haring. When Camper Van Beethoven broke up, Jackson also lost his main source of income and went back to process serving, which he’d done before becoming a rock band manager.

What is a process server? Ever been served court documents, subpoenaed, or issued a summons? If it wasn’t a sheriff, it was probably a private process server—a professional whose main job is delivering legal documents.

Since Jackson had to work, and this was before everyone had a mobile phone, I would sometimes ride along with him to discuss band business. One day, I joined him while he was staking out the back entrance of a Beverly Hills office building. He was trying to serve some poor schmuck who may or may not have been Michael Milken—the man who later became known as the junk bond king—who had so far managed to avoid being served. Jackson suspected the target was using the freight elevator to slip in and out unnoticed. That day, Jackson’s intuition paid off: as the man was boarding the freight elevator, Jackson managed to toss the documents to him.

It was pretty exciting—it felt like a small victory for me as well. That moment seemed to signal good fortune on the horizon. Shortly afterward, we got the go-ahead to record the new album, our choice of engineer/producer Don Smith was approved, and, most importantly, we received the first installment of the recording advance. It wasn’t a lot of money but we were no longer broke.

Recording the album was fairly uneventful—well, except for getting the legendary musicians Jim Keltner and Benmont Tench to play on a couple of tracks. Keltner played on “Mr. Wrong” and “Happy Birthday,” while Tench played on “I See the Light” and “Mr. Wrong.” Those days were pretty amazing, but otherwise, it was standard Hollywood fare—not quite assembly line, but fast. We didn’t have much of a budget. As the Van Halen song says: “Ain’t got no time to mess around.”

The most interesting part of the whole project was mixing the record and finishing overdubs at a studio in Chatsworth, way out in the valley. Chatsworth might not ring any bells for most people, but at the time, it was the Hollywood of the porn industry, sometimes called Porn Valley. The studio was in an industrial park surrounded by cabinet makers, sheet metal fabricators, and plumbing companies, but also video production companies with unusual names like Velvet Vixen Films or Eros Productions (I’m making those up—apologies if they’re real). When the taco truck showed up for lunch, we played a little game to guess which customers were adult film actors. Oddly, the men were easier to spot than the women. We’d test our hunches by sending the assistant engineer or studio gofer to follow them and see which building they returned to.

“Damn, I thought for sure I was right, he really didn’t look like a sheet metal fabricator.”

When the record came out, the label sent us to San Francisco for a radio programmer convention—I think it was called the Gavin Convention. On the first day, we were thrilled to learn that “Teen Angst” had been played for a panel of programmers in a blind test, and several remarked, “I’d put that in heavy rotation right now.” One of those programmers was from MTV. This happened right at the start of the convention, instantly inflating our egos. Therefore we proceeded to make spectacles of ourselves for the rest of the event: our newfound mischievous rock star swagger had us crashing private parties and stage-diving during Spinal Tap’s closing performance for an audience of seated radio programmers.

Just before the convention, an A&R person from Warner-Chappell Music Publishing offered me a songwriter publishing deal. Publishing deals are like record deals, but for songwriters—many performer-songwriters have both. Even though I was the main songwriter, many songs on the first record were co-written, so it felt odd for just me to have the deal. I had them modify it to include Davey Faragher and Hickman. Warner-Chappell was happy to oblige, since it meant they’d have an interest in all the songs on the record not just mine. But on signing day, Hickman was nowhere to be found. He apparently had reservations and felt slighted, maybe because the deal was originally offered only to me—I never really figured it out. We tracked him down at a laundromat in Hollywood, and Davey Faragher convinced him to come to the attorney’s office with us. By the time the Gavin Convention happened, this was all forgotten, and we all had cash in our pockets, which probably only added to our obnoxious over confidence and cockiness.

A few years earlier, I’d had a brief conversation with Jeff Ayeroff, president of Virgin Records America. I wanted to convince him that Camper Van Beethoven was working hard to create songs that would connect with the public. I may or may not have had a working theory—after all, young artists often think they have special insight into consumer tastes and develop elaborate theories about making hit records. He wasn’t exactly annoyed, but he didn’t want to hear my theories; instead, he cut me off with a warm smile and said, “Just write and record a bunch of songs. You’ll accidentally write a hit.” And that’s exactly what happened. “Teen Angst” was written quickly—like “Skinheads,” I bashed it out in an hour. Hickman added his guitar hook when we demoed it. If any song was an accidental hit, this was it.

The second album

We recorded it out in Pioneertown

We tried to rent Frank Sinatra’s house

But the realtor shut us down

The album spawned three more singles

None of them sounded like grunge

But we were selling out theaters

It’s timing and it’s luck

The second album was different. We had a bigger budget, and producer Don Smith suggested we do a residency—rent a house in the mountains or a poolside manor in Palm Springs. One day, he picked up me, Johnny, and our manager Jackson in his Chevy Suburban, and we drove around looking at places in the San Bernardino Mountains, Idyllwild, and Palm Springs/Palm Desert. The first place we saw was an old speakeasy in Lake Arrowhead, once operated by gangster Bugsy Siegel—I think it’s called The Tudor House now. There’s an interesting story there but maybe for another time.

Next, we saw Frank Sinatra’s place in Rancho Mirage, a simpler, more rustic spread compared to his famous Palm Springs estate. It had a surprisingly small main house, a pool house/guest house, a movie theater, and remnants of a helicopter pad built for JFK. Sinatra called it The Compound, and ever since, I’ve been searching for a compound for my band. I have this theory that both my bands would have been more popular if we’d had a compound—especially Camper Van Beethoven, which seems like the kind of band that would’ve had one but didn’t. We violated some secret law of the universe, so our career was throttled or shadow-banned by unseen forces. But I digress. When the realtor stepped out briefly, Johnny leapt onto the bed in the master bedroom and said, “Frank and Ava” He was referring to Ava Gardner, but that was actually Sinatra’s Palm Springs house. This was his “breakup” swinging bachelor pad. When the realtor returned, she was now suspicious, she asked what we wanted the house for. When we explained we wanted to record an album, she shut us down and ended the tour.

We looked at a few more places before calling it a day. Jackson suggested we head up to Pioneertown in the high desert for a steak at Pappy and Harriet’s—a legendary roadhouse and live music venue. Though it’s now a fixture on the national touring circuit thanks to Robyn Celia and Linda Krantz, who bought the place in 2003, back in 1993 it was essentially a biker bar known for its serious mesquite grill.

As we ate, Don Smith turned to us and said, “Why don’t we record here? This place has a vibe!” When Harriet walked by, he asked, “Ma’am, is there any way we could record an album here? I’d bring in a mobile truck.” Harriet replied, “You can’t record in here, but what’s wrong with The Sound Stage?” Don surprised “Sound stage?”

Pioneertown, California, was founded in 1946 by a group of Hollywood investors—including Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Russell Hayden—as a unique 1880s-themed live-in movie set, designed to serve as both a filming location and a functioning community. Unlike typical Hollywood facades, Pioneertown’s buildings were fully constructed to house real businesses and residences, with Mane Street acting as both the town’s main thoroughfare and a ready-made Western backdrop.

Pappy and Harriet’s had originally been the gas station, but over the years it was expanded and converted into a bar and restaurant. Because this was a functioning movie set, they needed a soundstage for interior shots. They built the soundstage to look like a barn from the outside. We walked down to look at it one late November night—no moon, freezing, and very windy in the high desert. It was pitch black, and Pappy carried an old-school lantern to light our way. The place was filled with cars. It looked like a chop shop. Apparently, that’s what Pappy and Harriet thought, too, and they were in the process of evicting the tenants. Don took one look and said, “This is it. We record here.”

Don loved to conjure up a studio environment that sparked creativity. Producers often ship a lot of their own equipment to a recording location, and Don did the same—but he also sent along a couple of extra crates labeled “vibe.” Inside those crates were tapestries, candles, carved figures, saint candles, ornamental swords, beads, and all kinds of similar treasures. With his collection, he could transform even the most sterile studio into something that looked and felt like an opium den.

But it was more than just show. Don would burn sage and light special candles before we began recording. He was part Filipino and had some Catholic background, which had somehow blended with some Southwestern Native American traditions over the years. For Don, these rituals weren’t just about atmosphere—they were prayers and blessings.

One time, when we were running low on candles, Don sent a studio assistant out for more. The assistant returned with black candles. Don genuinely panicked. He was truly disturbed, believing the black candles could invite negative energy or even evil into the studio—something he associated with black magic or bad luck. “Get those fucking things out of here. Now get ’em out!” he shouted, in a state of real alarm.

But in Pioneertown, there was no need for his crates. The whole place was vibe—weathered wood, rough-hewn beams, railroad ties, and adobe bricks made you feel like you were in an 1880s frontier town. About two months later, we returned with a mobile truck and recorded what would be our most popular album in the soundstage. It was a magical environment for making music—coyotes howling at night, a mountain lion spotted walking down Mane Street, and, on moonless nights, the Milky Way more prominent than I’d ever seen.

Some years later Counting Crows were similarly impressed and sang in “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”:

We drove out to the desert

Just to lie down beneath this bowl of stars

We stand up in the Palace

Like it’s the last of the great Pioneertown bars

We shout out these songs against the clang of electric guitars

Well, you can see a million miles tonight

But you can’t get very far

There was something audacious about the night sky in Pioneertown. We became small specks in the universe, yet here we were—undaunted—singing our songs with friends around a campfire, just as others have done for thousands of years. Instead of feeling as if our songs—and ourselves—were in danger of disappearing into the void of the infinite universe above us, it felt as though we were being lifted up and carried along in the slipstream of time, alongside millions of other souls. In that moment, we were immortal, and the songs eternal.

And I should have got down upon

My knees and thanked the Lord

Cause it don’t last long

Enjoy it while you can

It don’t last long

It don’t last long

Enjoy it while you can

It don’t last long

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David Lowery: vocals, guitars and bass

Jim Dalton: electric guitars

Stream or order the new album here.

“Let It Roll Down The Hill” (#15) and “Pretty Girl From Oregon Hill” are companion pieces that introduce the two main characters from my time in Richmond: the city’s Oregon Hill neighborhood and, more importantly, my first wife, Mary. In “Let It Roll Down The Hill,” I sing about meeting Mary after moving to Oregon Hill, but that’s not entirely accurate—she was actually the reason I moved to Virginia in the first place.

I met Mary a year earlier at a party in Oregon Hill, after a 10,000 Maniacs show at The Landmark Theatre (then called The Mosque). Natalie took me to a party in the neighborhood, where I noticed this wild-looking punk rock goth girl—Mary. She had long black ringlets, wore vintage black lace clothing and combat boots, and was totally cute. A biker saying came to mind: I’d gotten a lot of advice about women from the bikers I worked with—most of it not safe for work—but one piece stuck with me: “It’s okay to date foxes, but marry cute.”

Mary lived in one of those funky, crumbling row houses that had lost the homes on either side. Her place was deeper into Oregon Hill, closer to the canal, where many houses were boarded up, abandoned, or already razed. One time, she came home from work to find that the entire entryway—door, frame, and sidelights—had been removed. The landlord had apparently salvaged it from one of the houses down the street that was about to be demolished, but the owner of that building had come and repossessed it. Mary had a cat and a super-energetic mutt named Daisy. She waited tables at a restaurant and drove a beat-up old Honda Civic. Like I said—a punk goth girl from Northern Virginia.

The contradiction was that, despite her rough teenage years and being on her own since she was eighteen, Mary came from a very respectable family—what we might now call part of “the Deep State.” Her mother and stepfather worked for USAID at various embassies around the world. When her stepfather died, it was revealed that he had been a CIA officer. Her father held a high-ranking position at the Office of Management and Budget, working out of the Old Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House complex.

Once, while walking through the building, we saw Vice President Dan Quayle sitting alone in a waiting area, wearing a strangely self-satisfied grin. Mary remarked that he looked like a cat who wasn’t supposed to be sitting on the nice furniture. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the first of many visits I would make to the White House and other centers of American power. For example, years later, I bowled at the White House bowling alley—here’s a photo as proof. 

(By the way, here’s a photo of Nixon that is on the opposite wall—notice his toe just over the line. Still, look at his form. To quote Walter Sobchak: “That creep really can roll.”

Back then, Richmond hadn’t yet been discovered and rehabbed by money from Northern Virginia and beyond. Much of the city’s commercial core was empty, boarded up, and abandoned. The 1990s crime wave hit hard, and for a time, Richmond had the highest murder rate in the country. The city was full of deserted buildings. Mary was adventurous—she’d be the first to climb through a window of an abandoned building if it looked interesting. I’d hang back, worried: “You think it’s safe? Are the cops going to come after us?” She’d grow impatient, say “Oh, c’mon,” and disappear inside in a flash of black curls, lace and combat boots. I’d nervously follow. Many of those buildings have since been renovated into upscale homes, galleries, and fine dining restaurants. Ten years later, we’d be invited to grand openings or housewarming parties and tell the new owners we’d been in their building many times before, and liked what they’d done with the place.

The reason I include this song in the set is because I had a really good life with Mary, she’s a great mom and she was incredibly supportive during the early days of Cracker. By Thanksgiving 1990, Johnny Hickman had headed back to California, somewhat discouraged and disillusioned. Though we’d managed to demo twenty songs and submit them to the label, they hadn’t offered to let us start recording, and there was definitely no more money coming in. That’s the thing about record deals: all the optionality is on the label’s side. They could keep us in limbo for quite a while, and that’s exactly what they did. It would be almost a year before we were allowed to start recording. Things got pretty dark for me, but Mary remained positive and supportive. She’d listen to my long ruminations about the best path forward—whether I should give up, get a job, or go back to grad school. Some of these conversations happened late at night after her long shifts at the restaurant. She’d come home with a bottle of wine and tell me to join her in the kitchen while she made pasta at 2:30 in the morning. Her surrogate mom was Stella Stavros, the legendary matriarch of one of the Greek restaurant families in town, and Mary had learned to cook vegetarian versions of amazing Greek and Italian dishes directly from her.

Mary was—and still is—a good friend to animals, always rescuing cats and stray dogs. Some we fostered and adopted out to family and friends; others we kept. At one point, we had seven cats and three dogs, almost all hard-luck cases. Jed had gone almost feral before we found him, Daisy had almost no hair from malnutrition-induced mange, and Lucy had a broken leg. Similarly, I felt like I was a stray she took in. She showed me kindness and encouragement, when others did not. And for this I owe her my life.

Pretty Girl from Oregon Hill 

I told myself that no one has the answers

It was just a way of lying to myself

So when a pretty girl from Oregon Hill

Said come and stay with me well I obliged

We had so many cats it was like a shelter

I brought my things from California

I brought a friend to help me make a record

But he fled back home when the winter it arrived

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

She by me and for this

I owe her my life

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

She waited tables all through the winter

In wooden house we called big dirty yellow

The only heat it came from kerosene

In the middle of the night

We’d walk down to the old part of town

They called Gunsmoke to buy more kerosene

And the streets they were lined with ancient buildings

Porticos straight from the gilded age

Opulent poverty broken down and half abandoned

You could almost see the ghosts

In the window frames

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

We danced in the ruins of

The planter’s mansions

And the pretty girl

She came from Oregon Hill

The boxwoods they shone

Silver in the moonlight

Went to visit your mother in Annapolis

She lived in house that was older than the United States

You father works at The White House now

So baby why you keeping me around

Sweet that you’re down here slumming it with me

Sweet that you’re down here slumming it with me.

+++++++++++++++++++

David Lowery: guitars and vocals

Luke Moller: strings

Stream or order the new album here.

If you want to know what “Let It Roll Down That Hill” is really about, you’ve got to start not in Richmond, but at the end of the song Piney Woods. in the middle of a rice field in Arkansas. 

That’s where Johnny Hickman and I found ourselves stranded one muggy night, in my dead ’64 Plymouth Valiant station wagon alongside Interstate 40. The car had thrown a rod, and we were stuck, getting eaten alive by mosquitos while we waited for a tow truck that took its sweet time. Unbeknownst to me, Johnny started swatting mosquitos with a magazine, leaving a Jackson Pollock of blood smears on the headboard. When we finally got to Richmond, I noticed those smudges and must have looked confused. Johnny just shrugged and said, “It’s our blood—from the mosquitos.” I remember thinking, “We’ve already paid a price in blood.” Maybe not the best omen, but maybe not the worst either. If I were a little more goth, I’d probably say something like, “Sometimes you have to bleed for your art.” But I’ll spare you that.

We rolled into Richmond, Virginia, towing the Plymouth behind a rented U-Haul, and landed in Oregon Hill—a neighborhood that, at the time, felt like a city within a city. Our new house at 239 S. Laurel Street was affectionately dubbed “Big Dirty Yellow.” It was big, it was yellow, and, well, it was dirty. Three bedrooms, three hundred bucks a month, no heat, no AC, and a hole in the floor big enough to crawl through into the basement. The houses in Oregon Hill were all like that: narrow, two-story wooden row houses, built for the factory workers at Tredgar Iron Works and the Albemarle Paper Company back after the Civil War. They looked more like something you’d see in New Orleans or a West Virginia coal town than the rest of Richmond.

There’s a persistent legend that Oregon Hill was settled by a whole village of Union loyalists from West Virginia, shipped in to keep the ironworks running and sabotage-free after the war. I’ve never found any hard evidence for that, but it’s believable. The neighborhood had its own accent (river was pronounced plainly as “river,” not the pretentious “Ruhvuh” of the Tidewater elite) its own mountain phrases (“ye oughta”) and a wariness of outsiders that made it feel like a world apart. It was 100% white, working-class, and proud of it—what some folks would call a white-trash ghetto, but with a fierce sense of community.

On the first night in Oregon Hill
Was a hootenanny on the porch
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

Fortunately for us, our neighbors took to us right away, probably because Johnny, always the goodwill ambassador, within  the first our of arriving in Oregon hill  ends up singing an impromptu duet of “Streets of Bakersfield” with the lady next door. When he flipped the last chorus to “Streets of Oregon Hill,” the small crowd went wild and demanded an encore. They had to play it twice more—with the new improved chorus— before the crowd dispersed.

That porch hootenanny was our welcome party, and it set the tone for our time in Oregon Hill. We never had to lock our doors, and no one ever complained about the noise we made recording demos in the house. On one side of us lived a deaf family, except for the oldest daughter who could hear and played pop radio loud. She often went to her grandmothers house for the weekend leaving the radio on full blast. It would play all weekend because the rest of her family couldn’t hear it. One Saturday night about 2:30 in the morning a group of punks probably coming back from a show at the punk club Twisters, stopped outside our house to sing along with the neighbors radio that was blasting that horrible mashup of Baby, I Love Your Way and Freebird that was popular around that time. 

I think I’m making it sound more redneck than it really was. The picture was much more complex. Oregon Hill was starting to change when we moved in. The old-timers—what people called the “Oregon Hillbillies”—were still the backbone, but artists, musicians, and hipsters were moving in, drawn by the cheap rent and the funky houses. Members of GWAR, The Fugs, House of Freaks, Flat Duo Jets, and Cowboy Junkies all lived or hung out there. The nearby Fan District had the money and the history, but not the music scene—too many rules, too many busybodies. Oregon Hill was the wild west, and that’s what made it great. Our house, Big Dirty Yellow, became our studio. We recorded demos there for what would become Cracker’s first albums. There was no insulation, so every sound—inside and out—was part of the recording.

On the second night in Oregon Hill
There was a brawl out in the street
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill
People took sides one corner or the other
While the streetlight lit the scene
Big bearded man with a knife and shovel
And the skinny man got a chain

Oregon Hill had its own brand of law and order. The first weekend we had our studio set up, we heard a commotion so loud it cut through our headphones. Two factions—newcomer bikers (not just hipsters were moving in to the neighborhood) and the original Oregon Hillbillies—were facing off in the street. One guy, the big guy, had a knife and shovel, the skinny guy was swinging a heavy chain. Both were shirtless, daring each other to make the first move. “C’mon motherfucker I’m gonna rock and roll you!”A hundred people gathered to watch. The crowd cheered for both sides, which didn’t really make sense, but that was Oregon Hill logic for you. Then a single fat city cop walked in and broke it up. In LA or New York, you’d have had SWAT teams. In Oregon Hill, one cop did the trick.

The Virginia State Penitentiary loomed over the neighborhood—a real prison, with death row and executions. I remember being at a party when the lights dimmed, and someone said, “They’re frying someone tonight.” I think they were joking, but it was never really clear. Anti death penalty protesters would gather outside, and sometimes counter-protesters from the neighborhood would show up with signs like “Fry him.” When they finally tore the prison down, the rats that had lived there moved into Oregon Hill. These were some tough rats—unimpressed by humans, bold as brass. They’d stroll through my kitchen like they owned the place. These were rats that had done time.

On the fifth night in Oregon Hill
I met two brothers both named Fred
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill
They lived in an unheated warehouse space
Down in the Shockoe Slip
Played guitar with their band one time
But the rats they ate my cords

It seems like a lot of my Richmond memories from that time involve rats. Around this period, I met the Linkous brothers—Mark and Matt—who would later gain fame as Sparklehorse. Back then, their band was called Salt Chunk Mary. We practiced together in a rat-infested, “unheated warehouse space down in Shockoe Slip.” I was there to play a couple of Camper Van Beethoven songs with them at a local show—my first live performance since Camper Van Beethoven broke up in Sweden.I left my gear there overnight, and when I returned for practice the next day, I discovered several of my cables had been chewed on by rats. These were old-school cables with that fluffy insulation, and it looked like the rats had stripped out the insulation to line their nests. I joke about this now, but that show I did with the Linkous brothers made me feel like I might one day get back on stage and perform my songs again—though, at the time, it wasn’t really clear if that would happen.

Oh and the reference to “two brothers both named Fred.” Is because Mark was born Frederick Mark Linkous. And just to fuck with me he told me that his brother was named Fred as well. Dry Western Virginia mountain humor.

Oregon Hill was full of unforgettable characters. Dirtwoman was a local legend—a redneck drag queen who could have stepped right out of a John Waters movie. Every year, he would wrestle Dave Brockie from GWAR (in costume) for charity. One time, Dirtwoman walked up to my soon-to-be wife, Mary, and took a bite of her ice cream cone. She just handed it over and said, “Keep it—you eat the rest.”

There was also Dog Man, whom Johnny named for his habit of sitting on his broken-down car, drinking beer, and barking or shouting at passersby. His words rarely made sense, but if you were just buzzed enough, you could almost sense a profound truth in his ramblings. There are so many Cracker songs that reference Oregon Hill or things that happened there, it feels like the neighborhood is almost a co-writer. Among the many songs inspired by those days are “Can I Take My Gun Up to Heaven,” “Kerosene Hat,” “James River,” and “Hollywood Cemetery.”

On the sixth night in Oregon Hill
I met my future ex-wife
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

Perhaps I’m burying the lede here: Why did I move to Richmond? I first spent real time in the city on my 29th birthday, September 10, 1989, while on tour with Camper Van Beethoven and 10,000 Maniacs. We played a show at the Mosque Theater near VCU, and afterward, Natalie Merchant invited me to a party in Oregon Hill. That night, surrounded by porch-sitting residents, cicadas buzzing in the trees, and a neighborhood that felt both familiar and strange, I met Mary—my future ex-wife. I’ll tell her story in the next song.

On the first night in Oregon Hill

Was a hootenanny on the porch

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

On the second night in Oregon Hill

There was a brawl out in the street

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

People took sides one corner or the other

While the streetlight lit the scene

Big bearded man with a knife and shovel

And the skinny man got a chain

On the third night in Oregon Hill

Well I finally got some sleep

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

(Hooo Hooo le bon temps roulez etc)

On the fourth night in Oregon Hill

Well I finally wrote a song

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

On the fifth night in Oregon Hill

I met two brothers both named Fred

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

They lived in an unheated warehouse space

Down in the Shockoe Slip

Played guitar with their band one time

But the rats they ate my cords

On the sixth night in Oregon Hill

I met my future ex-wife

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

(Hooo Hooo le bon temps roulez etc)

++++++++++++++++++++++

David Lowery: vocals and guitar

Luke Moller: fiddles

Velena Vego: stomps, claps and backing vocals

Stream or order the new album here.

“Piney Woods” ostensibly tells the story of my move from Los Angeles to Virginia, with a stop in Arkansas to visit my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But the actual move is the least important part of the story. At its core, this is a song about the murder of my dad’s brother and how that event created generational trauma in my family, with the legacy of racism in Arkansas serving as a kind of coda.

Still, the move itself deserves some mention because it was a complete fiasco. As I’ve noted before, most of my belongings had been stolen while I was in Europe, so I didn’t have much left to take to the East Coast. But even if you don’t have much, uprooting your life and moving 3,000 miles is still a major ordeal. To make things even more complicated, what little I had left was scattered all over Southern California-some with friends, some with family.

I’d convinced John Hickman to come with me. He had a bit of stuff to move as well, but surprisingly not much-just a guitar and a Peavey amp. Even so, it was nearly midnight by the time we finally loaded the last of our things into the U-Haul trailer.

Most sensible people would have waited until morning to leave, but we were about to drive a 26-year-old car across the country. Sure, it had a relatively new engine and a rebuilt transmission, but it was still an old car-and we were towing a trailer. At some point, we realized that since it was August and we’d be crossing the Mojave Desert, it might be smarter to drive at night. That quickly became our plan: cover long stretches after dark. Johnny and I grabbed some coffee-I think at the same Circle K from the “Leaving Key Member Clause”-and headed out of the LA basin into the high desert.

Packed up my Valiant
Station wagon with my clothes
It was almost midnight
When I left Los Angeles
Drove through the desert
On a moonless night
Then I saw the sunrise
The other side of Flagstaff

Drove cross the reservation
With an aching in my heart
Would I see my family
Ever again
Checked into a motel
Gallup, New Mexico
Dreamed about my grandmother
She was speaking to me

The plan was to take a break for a few days in Arkansas, just south of Pine Bluff. My grandmother had recently moved back there with Toni and Wayne, my aunt and uncle. (Incidentally, Aunt Toni’s real name was Marie Antoinette. Unusual, old-fashioned names are a running theme in my dad’s family-don’t even get me started on Sophronia, Nimrod, and General Forest.)

In the late ’80s, much of my dad’s family made a general exodus from the Coachella Valley back to Arkansas. This included Uncle Johnny, the “hellfire Baptist minister,” Aunt Barbara, the infamous felonious twins, and a host of other cousins. Uncle Johnny and Barbara lived about a quarter mile down the dirt road in a ramshackle trailer, while various cousins were scattered deeper into the back country. It was a very humble, very poor area, though not without its own natural beauty. The place sits at the northern end of a region called the Piney Woods.

The Piney Woods is a dense, mostly coniferous forest that stretches across northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. Wild, poor, and underdeveloped, it’s home to abundant wildlife and rare species that are nearly extinct elsewhere. Shortly before she died, my grandmother claimed she heard the distinct call of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker-something she remembered from her childhood. I like to think it returned to call her home.

Even today, this area feels more like a frontier than part of a modern, post-industrial nation. While Toni and Wayne worked regular jobs in Pine Bluff for a mill supply company, my Uncle Johnny and his kids lived almost entirely off the land, farming small plots, logging, and fishing.

Come see my grandson
I’m in the piney woods
You’re on your way to Virginia
Come see me son
Come see your family
Your uncles buried in this soil
So you can understand
Where it all comes from

During those few days in Arkansas, I finally had the chance to talk to my grandmother about her life. There was so much family history I wanted to learn before her generation was gone. She was in her eighties at the time. In particular, I was hoping she might tell me about my uncle William C., my dad’s brother, who had died in a small plane crash on their old farm. My dad never wanted to talk about it, and it was clear there was more to the story. And there was.

When I brought up his death, my grandmother seemed almost eager-relieved, even-to finally share the story with me. She started bluntly: “In 1947, my son William was murdered. It was a murder-suicide.” She then described in great detail how the events unfolded. I can’t really do it justice, but essentially, a local pilot owed my grandfather money. It was a bitter dispute. Eventually, the pilot came to my grandfather and said he’d pay what he owed, but wanted William, his oldest son, to accompany him in his small plane to El Dorado, Arkansas-a bawdy former oil boom town to the south. The man promised to bring William and the money back to the farm the next day.

Of course, this was a terrible ruse. The pilot and William C. took off in the plane, circled the farm a few times, then pointed the plane toward the ground at full throttle and crashed it next to the house. My dad and his family watched as William died. This may have even been an attempt to kill the whole family. The reason my grandmother wanted to tell me this story was to explain how the murder created what mental health experts now call generational trauma. This term refers to the psychological and sometimes physiological effects of trauma that are not limited to a single individual but are passed down from one generation to the next.

She and my grandfather were never the same. They eventually sold their property and left that part of Arkansas because of the tragic history and the violence that had occurred there. My grandfather seemed to never sleep. When I was a kid, I remember seeing him sit up all night in a rocking chair at my grandparents’ house in the Coachella Valley. I asked my grandmother if that was because of the murder, and she said, “Likely. He felt responsible.” My father was forever damaged by this as well. He was always beset by anxiety and struggled his whole life, often saying his “nerves were shot” after his brother died. His two older sisters also showed signs of depression and anxiety. I feel like a lot of that anxiety was passed to me from my father, and perhaps from me to my sons.

My wife Velena’s people passed through Arkansas too, though a little farther north, up in the shadowed folds of the Zigzag Mountains. During the lean years of the Depression, her grandfather met his end there-murdered, maybe over a card game, maybe for something even less noble. It makes you wonder about a place, whether the land itself breeds a certain wildness, a lawlessness that seeps into the roots and the rivers. In Arkansas no real city ever really took hold here-unless you count Texarkana, half-in and half-out of everywhere, or nowhere. What you find now are faded boomtowns, hollowed out by time and the slow collapse of oil and timber.

The region is rich in folklore and music about highway robbers, murderers, and all sorts of outlaws. It’s not that there weren’t good people here-there were, and are-but somehow, the darkness always seemed to find its way into every family, touching everyone just enough to leave a mark.

The dark malaise that comes to you
On a bright and sunny day
The feeling that something bad
Could happen any time
It is a family wound
Cuts across three generations son
You carry it inside of you
Just like your father did

My oldest son
Was murdered in these fields
A man came to the house
Owed my husband money
If I can take your son, William
To El Dorado
I’ll bring him back home
With all that I owe
They took off in a small plane
And circled our fields
He pointed the plane downward
it crashed into the ground
As William lay dying
His little brother looked on
That’s what your father carries
It’s inside of you too

And then there is the sordid history of racism in my family, which enters as a coda to the song. What I’m not going to do is what many well-intentioned white people often do when confronting a family history that involves racism or slavery. They tell stories of “the good relative” or create an “ancestral alibi.” These are tales about a great-uncle from Mississippi who defended a black defendant wrongfully accused of a crime, a grandmother in Pennsylvania who stood up to her racist Polish neighbors, a second great-grandmother who was part of the Underground Railroad, or a third great-grandfather who commanded black Union troops in the Civil War. There’s a tendency for white people to share these stories with black friends once they become close. I’ve seen this play out several times in my life, and-as the kids say-it’s a “super cringe” moment. I’m not going to do that—not out of some deliberate effort to avoid it, but simply because, if you go back a couple generations there is little redeemable here. 

Although Arkansas was not a major slave state in terms of sheer numbers, it still has a terrible past with racism. If you mention “Little Rock” to anyone in my generation, the first image that comes to mind is that textbook photo of the 101st Airborne escorting nine black students past an angry white mob into Central High School. In my experience, some of the most virulently racist things I’ve ever heard from white people have been in Arkansas, especially in the mountain regions that never had much of a black population to begin with. As black scholars have noted, this may be due to the dominance of a raw, xenophobic brand of racism in these “whiter” areas, as opposed to the more patronizing racism found in the blacker Mississippi and Arkansas Delta regions.

Someone once confidently told me that only 8% of all American households owned slaves in 1860, implying that it was actually quite rare to be descended from a slaveholder. But that’s a questionable conclusion. You have 32 third great-grandparents. Do the math. If your family is from the South, the odds are inescapable-about 30% of all families owned slaves.

That said, I never once in my life heard my dad, mom, or grandmother use a racial slur or behave in an overtly racist manner. Still, my Arkansas family included plenty of racists-some of whom eventually changed, but many did not. Make no mistake: this is the legacy of slavery. My second great-grandfather owned a couple of slaves. His brother was a large slaveholder, which probably explains why Lowery is a common black surname in the U.S. The Civil War wiped out much of my family; many who survived died of typhoid, and those who lived were left deeply impoverished. They held a grudge about all of this well into my father’s generation. My grandfather’s brother was named General Forest Lowery-after General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the KKK. No one was hiding anything.

So the confession at the end of the song from my Uncle Johnny is not surprising. He isn’t completely disavowing his racist past; he’s simply admitting that he’s ashamed of having been in the Klan. Like he went too far.

He picked up Hickman and me to go fishing, but first he had a long list of errands to run. Occasionally, he would drop the N-word-old school, hard R. What made it so confusing was that most of his errands involved swapping favors and borrowing things from various black men, who called him by his first name just as he called them by theirs. They were all clearly friends of some sort. The one variation was the black pastor who was recovering from chemotherapy. When we stopped by to see if his lawn needed mowing, Uncle Johnny treated him with respect, addressing him formally and using his honorific and last name. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to go fishing with him. I went anyway because he always had a certain undeniable charisma despite his flaws. He would have made a good cult leader. How could I turn him down? My first wife, Mary, upon meeting him, said, “Poor Aunt Barbara-her fate was sealed the moment she met him.”

There’s a reason I say, “I can’t escape this country”—meaning the Piney Woods and my family here, despite all their obvious flaws. My father’s family has always been, and still is, deeply religious. Yet many of them are also deeply troubled. Some, like the twins, have had frequent run-ins with the law, struggled with addiction, or been prone to violence.

To most secular or mildly religious people today, much of my family might seem hypocritical, constantly violating the tenets of their Baptist faith. They’d likely be dismissed as “bad Christians”—often by people who misunderstand Christianity. Yes, my family is made up of sinful people, living in a fallen world, just like everyone else. However, unlike the secular, or those who attend church only occasionally, my family has a deep understanding of grace, which is the core principle at the heart of their faith.

The radical nature of grace is that it’s given freely by God—not because we deserve it, but precisely because we don’t. Regular confession, gratitude, and seeking forgiveness are seen not as ways to earn grace, but as appropriate responses to this extraordinary gift. Nowhere else in my life have I found people so willing to acknowledge their wrongdoings, seek forgiveness, and express genuine gratitude for what they have been given. In this regard, I often wish I were more like them.

My aunts husband Johnny
Took us fishing on the Arkansas
He put in the boat
Down under a bridge
And he caught a drum fish
Gave to a young black man
Says “something I’m not proud of
I was in the Ku Klux Klan”
We left that night for Memphis
We drove east in the hot night
Broke down in a rice field
Just off the interstate
Mosquitos they swarmed us
They were eating us alive
I can’t escape this country
I guess it’s my cross to bear

+++++++++++++++++

David Lowery: Vocals and Guitar

13 Leaving Key Member Clause

The “leaving key member clause,” sometimes called the “leaving member provision,” is a section of a recording contract that addresses what happens if a member of a recording group leaves, is kicked out, or if the band splits up. This provision typically gives the record label several options:

• Keep the departing member as a solo artist under the same terms as the group contract
• Retain the remaining members under the same terms
• Terminate the agreement with either the departing members, the remaining members, or both.

The label can even mix and match these options. The idea is that the record label inserts this clause to protect its investment in the group. If the group breaks up, the label wants maximum flexibility to recoup its losses. The clause becomes controversial when it comes to handling any unrecouped balance. Many people mistakenly think of the unrecouped balance as debt, but it is not. If you end your recording contract with a $1,000,000 unrecouped balance, the record company doesn’t put a lien on your house or car. Instead, it’s an internal accounting system that determines when the record label must pay additional royalties beyond the advances that an artist has already received under the contract.

There is a nuanced debate about whether being “unrecouped” is actually bad. Most managers and artists assume it is, but business managers and musicians with quantitative finance backgrounds-like myself-often argue it’s not always negative. In fact, it can sometimes mean you were paid more than you should have been. Regardless, what is truly problematic is when your new band, retained under the “leaving key member clause,” is forced to carry some or all of the previous band’s unrecouped balance. Unfortunately, this happens-and it happened to me when Camper Van Beethoven broke up. I don’t recall the exact percentage, but it wasn’t the whole balance; it was something around 40% of CVB’s debt. At least it wasn’t 100%, as some contracts require. So, before Cracker received a single advance or recorded a single note, we were already in the hole.

Well I arrived late night in
Southern California
Got a ride from Jackson
To my old place in the Hollywood Hills
“Congratulations you’ve been declared
The band’s key member
Here’s the recording contract
and all of the unrecouped debt”

Ironically, many people saw me as “the lucky one” because I got the recording contract while the rest of the band was dropped. However, this turned out to be good for some of the remaining members: Chris, Greg, and Victor immediately secured a brand new (zero unrecouped balance!) recording contract with IRS Records.

But maybe I was lucky. It would have been a tough sell for me to come up with a 20-song demo and shop it to a bunch of record labels, especially as grunge was about to sweep across the entire rock music landscape. Imagine trying to shop the songs from the first Cracker record in 1991:

“Yeah, here’s the singer from Camper Van Beethoven.”

“Is it grunge?”

“No, it’s sort of country rock.”

“Pass.”

That’s not far from the truth. When I turned in the first Cracker record, our A&R guy basically warned us to lower our expectations, since we were putting out a country-leaning rock record at a time when alternative radio was dominated by Nirvana.

Drove my Valiant out to my Redlands
Storage locker
The door was open
The lock laying on the ground
All my gear was gone
Just a crate of vinyl records
Sold them all for cash
At Rhino Records that afternoon.

After Camper Van Beethoven broke up, I drifted around for a while. As I mentioned earlier, I stayed with my grandfather in the UK, then went to Morocco (see the song “Sidi Ifni”), and later Virginia. Eventually, I returned to California, where my manager, Jackson Haring, and future attorney, Brian McPherson, let me stay in my old apartment while I tried writing songs with a few people, including eventually Johnny Hickman.

When I got to LA, I went out to Redlands, CA. I’d left my car at my parents’ house, and all my belongings were in a mini storage unit. My car-a 1964 Valiant station wagon-was fine, but my storage locker had been mostly cleaned out. Someone had cut the lock, apparently just the night before, and taken almost everything: most of my music gear, recording equipment, and my vast vinyl collection. A few records remained. This was extremely disheartening. I considered giving up right then and there-just getting a regular job. I looked up some old friends in Redlands, and we went out and got drunk that night. I woke up the next morning at my parents’ house, slightly hungover, angry, and determined to double down on my music career.

I took what was left of my vinyl records and sold them at Rhino Records in Claremont, California, netting maybe $300. I had about $2,500 in the bank. I drove to Guitar Center in Hollywood and spent about $2,000 on a Tascam 688 all-in-one 8-track recorder, two Shure dynamic microphones (57 and 58), an Audio-Technica small-diaphragm condenser, and an Alesis HR-16 drum machine. Fortunately, I’d taken my two main guitars to Europe, and I’d left a bass and a few other guitars at my parents’ house, so I didn’t have to buy new instruments. I don’t remember the exact figures, but I do recall having about $800 left to my name, and I was determined to make it last until I could demo a few songs for the label.

Wait a minute-what about that record contract? That’s the thing: you get the advance at the commencement of recording, or at least pre-production. The problem was that I was still under the old contract. Damn leaving key member clause! A new deal would have given me a small signing bonus-some walking-around cash. I knew I could probably talk the label into giving me some money a little early, but I’d need a few song demos first. That was my plan.

So I set up a little studio in my old apartment. Bryan McPherson had taken my room, so Jackson and Bryan let me sleep on the couch, and I started recording in the kitchen during the day while they were at work.

I took that cash and my last
Two thousand dollars
Bought a Tascam 688
And some microphones
Set it all up
In the kitchen of Bryan McPherson’s apartment
The record company contract
Leaving key member clause

I already had a few songs in the works, although none were fully finished. One of them was “St Cajetan,” which started as a riff and chord progression I came up with before a Camper Van Beethoven gig at St Cajetan’s-a Catholic church that sometimes served as a music hall at the University of Colorado Denver. I also had a lyric idea: “All I want is a cool drink of water.” That line was inspired by a conversation I had with one of the clergy there. When I asked what St Cajetan was the patron saint of, he paused and replied in broken English, “Complicated… one thing is the man that tells you where to dig a well.” I thought, “Interesting-a dowser, a well diviner. So, St Cajetan, all I want is a cool drink of water.” As it turns out, that’s not quite accurate; St Cajetan is actually the patron saint of bankers and gamblers. Still, since dowsing has a shady history and is basically a form of gambling, maybe the connection isn’t so far off. But I digress.

So I had this guitar riff, chord progression, and one line of lyrics. Johnny Hickman was an old friend from Redlands-we’d even played in some of the same bands (though not always at the same time). I invited him to Los Angeles to try writing together. We started with St Cajetan. Within an hour, he had added a powerful guitar riff and backing vocal melody, transforming the song into more of a southern rock anthem. We tried another song, then another. In about a week, we had five or six songs. They weren’t perfect, but it was clear we had a knack for writing together.

What I didn’t realize was that Hickman was just as broke as I was. He had borrowed money from his mother just to make the drive from Kern County to the writing sessions. One morning, he showed up at the apartment with a black eye. It turned out he’d given his last $20 to the clerk at the Circle K gas station and put a small amount of gas in his car. The clerk gave him change for a ten. A huge argument ensued, and Hickman got punched. The cops came and it was looking bad for Hickman since he’d come around behind the counter. Eventually, a good Samaritan suggested they count the cash drawer. The clerk had $10 too much and gave Hickman his money back, along with an apology. The funny thing was, after that we went into this Circle K all the time for beer and cigarettes-it became our tradition.

Johnny Hickman comes in
with a black eye just out of Kern County
A Circle K argument
Over incorrect change
Couldn’t make up my mind if this was a good
Or terrible omen
But he took out his frustrations
Playing guitar on every song
I could barely get by on my
Bug mechanical royalties
But the record company parties
Kept us fed and drunk
There were local girl flirtations
In the Hollywood dive bars
The record company contract
Leaving key member clause
It’s a wonder we got anything
Done at all
It’s a wonder we ever left

+++++++++++++++
Bryan Howard: bass

Jeremy Lawton: piano and organ

David Lowery: vocals and guitar

Carlton Owens: drums

Matt “Pistol” Stoessel: pedal steel

Stream or order the new album here.

After Camper Van Beethoven broke up, I found myself in the United Kingdom with a return flight to Washington, D.C. that wasn’t scheduled for another month. I had always intended to visit my grandfather in Westgate-on-Sea—a village adjacent to Margate (see: #1 Frozen Sea)—for a few days, but now I suddenly had several weeks at my disposal. In many ways, this turned out to be the best therapy imaginable.

My grandfather was a relentlessly positive survivor of various Second World War naval campaigns, as well as a seasoned merchant seaman. He had travelled all over the world and, to put it mildly, had seen a great deal. The point of the song is this: here I am, a young man facing a personal crisis—having essentially lost my job and my identity as the singer of a well-known indie band. It felt like the end of the world to me, but in reality, my problems were quite trivial compared to what people two generations before—like my grandfather—had to endure.

It’s remarkable, really, that despite periods when things may seem to worsen for new generations, on the whole and over the long term (at least here in the liberal democracies), one’s grandchildren are generally better off than oneself. As a young man, my troubles were insignificant compared to what my grandfather had faced, which included fighting actual Nazis—an enemy both numerically and technologically superior at times. The wonderful thing about my grandfather, though, was that he never needed to say any of this to me. He didn’t have to point out that I was a “foolish young man with very small problems.” He was genuinely pleased that I lived in a safer, freer, and more compassionate society. Indeed, if you’d asked him, that was precisely what his sacrifice was about: so that his grandchildren could have “very small problems.”

And what, exactly, was his sacrifice? What did he endure? Like many of his generation, he rarely spoke about the truly harrowing, gritty, and terrifying aspects of his service. Instead, he would share amusing, family-friendly stories about his adventures in exotic places like Sri Lanka (which he still called Ceylon), Sierra Leone, or even downtown Oakland, California. We grandchildren managed to piece together that at least one of his ships was torpedoed and had to be completely rebuilt at Mare Island, Vallejo, California. After he passed away, my sister Stephanie, my cousin Russell, and I made informal and occasional attempts to piece together his wartime experiences. In recent years, this process has become much easier thanks to the online availability and searchability of military archives, which have allowed us to reconstruct some of his story.

As I mention in the song, his ship, HMS Liverpool, appears to have been severely damaged during the Battle of Calabria. This must have been a terrifying ordeal, as he was an engineer and would have been below decks, striving to keep the ship afloat, effecting repairs, and fighting fires. The records are patchy, so it’s difficult to say whether any lives were lost in these attacks, but it was certainly a significant engagement. The ship was disabled but remained structurally sound enough to be taken in tow towards Alexandria, Egypt. However, en route, she was bombed by an Italian dive-bomber, resulting in a massive explosion that tore the bow completely off, causing extensive damage and loss of life. Remarkably, the ship was temporarily repaired in Alexandria and then towed all the way to Mare Island, California, where my grandfather was part of the crew overseeing her repair and return to service.

I should note that I have mis-titled the song. Since some of the action involving this ship took place in the Eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Leros, I mistakenly believed it was part of the Battle of Leros. In fact, that engagement was a key part of the Dodecanese Campaign and a significant setback for the British and Allies, but it occurred much later in the war. By that time, my grandfather was stationed in Sierra Leone, operating from a former merchant vessel, HMS Philoctetes, which served as a floating repair ship for damaged Royal Navy and merchant vessels. By then, repairing ships had become something of a speciality for my grandfather, given his considerable experience.

Although this was considered a relatively “safe” posting, it was dangerous in a different way. The repair crews worked on two ships moored alongside each other, so there was always the risk of injury from the movement between vessels or the danger of falling overboard into waters with swift currents. The narrowing of the estuary there creates a strong tidal scour, with currents reaching up to six knots. While this preserves a natural deep-water harbor, anyone falling overboard would likely be swept away.

In addition, it appears my grandfather was involved in another historic incident while serving aboard HMS Liverpool. In January 1940, before Japan and the United Kingdom were officially at war, Liverpool caused a diplomatic incident by intercepting the Japanese liner Asama Maru off the coast of Japan and removing 21 German nationals, which prompted a formal protest from the Japanese government.

One final correction the US made minesweeper that my Grandfather served on, that was later in the Cold War not during WWII. So in fact “Mickey Mouse with a big push broom” was not in fact “sweeping up German mines.”

Looking back, I realize that for all the weird and wonderful places I’ve been I was never really caught up in the kind of world-shaking events my grandfather lived through. Sure, I’ve had my share of misadventures and existential crises, but let’s be honest: none of it compares to dodging torpedoes in the Med or patching up warships under enemy fire. My stories are mostly about problems of my own making. Yet, you know my stories—my trials and tribulations—but not his. Perhaps this song can help balance that out a bit. 

Finally hats off to Megan Slankard who does backing vocals on the record. She also did some sort of whistling keyboard part to evoke boatswain’s whistles. 

Knock knock grandad I’m at your door
Wounded pride cause I lost my girl
Lost my friends down on my luck
Can I stay with you

Cause you’re always so sunny grandad
Cause the Jerrys didn’t get you
Leave you sleeping with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea

So sunny grandad
Cause the krauts didn’t get you
Leave you sleeping with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea

You were my age
You’d already been
Stuka bombed and torpedoed twice
The campaign at Dodecanese
Can I stay with you

Cause you’re always so sunny grandad
Didn’t sink you at Leros
Leave you sleeping with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea
You’re so sunny grandad
Cause the Jerrys didn’t get you
Leave you sleeping with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea

And I know
I’m a foolish young man
With very small problems
I know
You would never say that to me
I know
You wouldn’t want me
To have to fight in World War II
To get a better disposition
To keep it all in perspective

Flying high off Sierra Leone
Rum rations with the local host
Lost some mates on that swaying gangplank
Swallowed up by the angry sea

You’re so sunny grandad
Didn’t sink you at Leros
Leave you sleeping with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea

You’re still sunny
Granddad cause the krauts didn’t get you
Leave you sleeping with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea

And I know
I’m a foolish young man
With very small problems
And I know
You would never say that to me
And I know
You wouldn’t want me
To have to go and fight the Nazis
To get a better disposition
To put it all in perspective

And I know
I’m foolish young man
With very small problems
And I know
You’re probably annoyed with me
And I know
You would never want me
To have to go and fight the Nazis
To get a better disposition
To put it all in perspective

Spiced rum with clove liqueur
Looking at your old ship’s plaque
Mickey Mouse with a big push broom
Sweeping up German mines

You’re always so sunny grandad
Didn’t sink you at Leros
Leave you swimming with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea
You’re still sunny
Granddad cause the krauts didn’t get you
Leave you swimming with the fishes
At the bottom of the sea

+++++++++++++++

David Lowery: vocals, bass, guitars and drum machine
Megan Slankard: backing vocals, keys and whistlin’

Stream or order this album here. 
I was going to say this is a song that operates on multiple levels, but that’s true of the majority of songs most songwriters write. That’s not a meaningful distinction. If I wanted to tell a straightforward story or recount a series of events, writing a song would be a really inefficient way of doing that. However, a song is fairly efficient at conveying bigger abstractions, meta-narratives, or truths that don’t lend themselves to linear narratives. Take a whimsical tune like Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere.” I think I understand what this song means, but it would be very difficult to explain it to you. My explanation would be much longer than the original song and would ultimately fall short of the full meaning. Bob Dylan found a remarkably efficient way to convey whatever it was he was trying to express.

Since I have a degree in mathematics, it occurred to me that there is a mathematical analogy here. I couldn’t quite find the right one, so I asked a friend who is better with these things. Here’s what she said:

It’s a bit like the concept of multiple orders of infinity in mathematics-how some infinities are larger than others, even though both are endless in their own way. The ideas and emotions expressed in a song can be infinite in depth and resonance, encompassing layers of meaning, memory, and association that can’t be fully captured by the more countable, sequential “infinity” of linear language. Trying to translate a song’s meaning into prose is like trying to line up all the infinite points on the continuum between 0 and 1, with the infinite counting numbers: you can map some of it, but there’s always a vastness left over—something untranslatable and uncontainable. Songs, then, are a higher order of expressive infinity—able to hold contradictions, ambiguities, and emotional truths that linear explanation can only ever approximate, never fully enclose.

“Everybody Get a Fucking Day Job” operates on many levels. On one level, it’s a direct reaction to the COVID shutdowns. I wrote this in early May 2020, after all shows were canceled and everyone in the live music business suddenly needed a day job, which, in music speak, means a job outside the music industry. Like many families impacted by the lockdowns, my wife and I lost 80% of our income. Ironically, Cracker was in Alaska on March 13, 2020, and probably played one of the last shows in the US due to the time zone. May was a dark time. It was clear there was no way to stop the spread of the virus, but there was little sense of whether the effects could be mitigated or contained. The damage to society and the economy was unclear, and most people were quite pessimistic. This song expresses that pessimism, delivered with some fatalistic humor.

On another level, it’s about what happens when a band breaks up. A blunt, comical accounting of what happens when the party is over. The tour van sputters to a halt. There’s no more money coming in. The label’s tour support ends, the recording advances disappear, and in the case of Camper Van Beethoven, because we breached the terms of our tour support agreement, our royalties also stopped (at least until the tour support deficit was recouped by songwriting royalties). Everybody has to get a job. Some of us waited tables. Others tended bar. It’s quite the comedown. And while this might feel like the biggest insult—especially if your identity is wrapped up in being a musician who can draw an adoring audience—it’s not the biggest insult.

The biggest insult is yet to come. It’s when you move on to your next project or new band. You might even manage a new record deal, and it’s possible you can get a few people to care, but unless you are extraordinarily lucky, as the song says, “Sorry man, no one gives a shit.” The song is a reminder that the magic of a band is often greater than the sum of its parts. Alone, we’re just people again, stripped of the collective identity that made us special. This isn’t meant to be bitter, no, it’s about embracing humility, finding dignity in starting over, and discovering resilience and humor in disappointment. It’s about embracing the ordinary after chasing the extraordinary, so that one day you might use the experience to reinvent yourself.

Everybody get a fucking day job
None of you are better than the rest
Everybody get a fucking day job
Wait tables tend bar
Push a broom wash a car
Everybody get a job
Apple Store Genius Bar

Everybody get a fucking day job
Sorry man no one gives a shit
Everybody get a fucking day job
Paint houses spread tar
Web design teach guitar
Everybody get a job
Apple store, Genius Bar

Everybody get a fucking day job
In the universe you’re just a tiny speck
Everybody get a fucking day job
Wait tables tend bar
Push a broom wash a car
Everybody get a job
Apple store Genius Bar

Everybody get a fucking day job
You are not as good as you have all been told
Everybody get a fucking day job
Paint houses spread tar
Web design teach guitar
Everybody get a job
Apple store Genius Bar

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David Lowery: guitars and vocals
Luke Moller: violins and viola
Velena Vego: claps and castanets

Stream or order this album here.

We really hate your guts
And we will never be your friend again
We really hate your guts
And we will never be your friend again
 

The song “We Hate You” recounts Camper Van Beethoven’s final days on tour, culminating in the band’s breakup. The first verse is set in mid April 1990, during a ferry ride from Denmark to Sweden. The band likely played a show the night before in Copenhagen, as we made port in Malmö. This was before the Øresund Bridge connected Denmark to Sweden, so the ferry was a large industrial vessel, akin to a floating Greyhound bus station. It was gloomy and unromantic.

By this point, the band had been touring for about three months in Europe, or roughly eight months worldwide, having been on the road almost non-stop since the previous August, with only a brief break from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve. The novelty of traveling by sea ferry had worn off long ago, probably around 1987 during the bands second European tour. Three years later no one was looking forward to a cold early morning ferry ride across the Baltic, especially me, as I was hungover.



The ferry’s cafeteria served peculiar Scandinavian breakfast items that Chris Pederson had previously dubbed “Viking Sushi,” which may have included eel. Faced with a long line of German truckers and the unappealing food, I decided to skip breakfast and head to the duty-free shop. I picked up a carton of Marlboro Reds and some chocolate with hazelnuts, grabbed a coffee from a machine, and went up onto the deck.

The sun was particularly bright that morning, but it was cold, with ice still visible in the shallow water along the shore. A group of Swedish men, clearly returning from partying in Copenhagen, were sitting on a deck box containing lifesaving equipment. Occasionally, one of them would stand up and vomit over the railing, adding to the bleak atmosphere.

I alternated between deep drags on my cigarette and sips of machine coffee. A seagull joined me, hovering almost stationary to my left, likely hoping for food. I turned and tried to blow a smoke ring at it, but the ring instantly disintegrated in the headwind. The gull protested with a cry, then angled its wings and shot 20 feet into the air and aft, landing near another group of travelers. Maybe they had some food.



It’s a bright April morning
Looking out at the Baltic Sea
Swedish drunks are heaving
Over the rails
I’m headed down to duty free
To buy some cigarettes
Hazelnut chocolate from
Germany



I was up on deck by myself because things were really tense with the other band members. I’m sure I wasn’t pleasant to be around. I had started taking any complaints about the tour personally. Whenever someone griped about the long drives or the hectic promotional schedule, I’d snap and say mean things like, “You’d just be sitting on your asses smoking weed back in Santa Cruz.”


The ship put in at Malmö
What an ugly Swedish town
As if to make the point
A seagull crapped on the van
I know you think I’m an asshole
A thankless taskmaster
You could have stayed home in
Santa Cruz smoking weed

I felt guilty and defensive because, in a way, they were right. The touring schedule was overkill. I had pushed the band hard to go on a global tour for this record. I viewed it as our moment, both creatively and commercially.

Commercially, we were finally being played consistently on commercial radio and had made our way into regular programming on MTV. This was our chance to expand our fanbase and maybe finally make a decent living—not get rich, but make a decent living touring. Despite appearing successful to our friends, we weren’t selling many records, and touring was mostly about breaking even and generating record sales. No one made money touring, which is why concert tickets were $8. I wanted to be able to buy a car or maybe rent my own place without roommates.

Creatively, this was also our moment. There is a fair amount of revisionist history about the record we were touring for, Key Lime Pie. Although it is now critically acclaimed, the reviews were mixed when it came out. Many critics and fans felt the dark tone of the record was off-brand, as they were used to our off-kilter, lighthearted psychedelic weirdness. This album wasn’t that. I felt like this record was the one that would finally get folks to consider us a serious band. It was the next stage in the evolution of the band, and the tour was helping us reach that next stage.

The band was right—the tour was brutal. A few weeks earlier, after our Vienna show (there’s a fantastic live bootleg recording on the live music internet archive), Chris Pedersen, Victor Krummenacher, and I came down with a terrible virus. It was almost like hemorrhagic fever; our fevers were so high that our lips cracked and bled. We sweated it out during a 16-hour drive to Italy.

It was also clear that the band had begun to really dislike me. I wasn’t being paranoid; it wasn’t just everyone being tired from the tour. When we finally arrived in Sundsvall, everything came to a head. At the venue, Morgan started mildly complaining about the hotel, a Euro guesthouse with a shared bath down the hall. I lost it and threw the deli tray at the wall. The next morning, everyone was gathered in the breakfast area when I got up. It was obvious something was going on.

“What’s up?”
“We’re going home.”
“You mean the tour’s over?”
“No, the band is over.”

When I woke up that morning, I knew I needed to apologize for losing my temper the night before. I did so now, hoping it would defuse the situation, but it didn’t. I then tried to reason with them, taking various approaches. They all failed. Finally, I appealed to our sense of shared sacrifice, saying, “We have accomplished so much. This is an amazing band we have built. We can’t just throw it away.”


Victor, with his typical flair for the dramatic, put a bullet in the discussion:

“We really hate your guts and we will never be friends again.”


Well ok then.



Howie, our tour manager, eventually managed to get the guys to play one more show in Örebro because he literally didn’t have enough cash on hand to get us back to London. So we played one more show and started the three-day drive back to London. Chris, Greg, and Victor managed to get someone back in the States to buy them tickets from Copenhagen to the US. I rode in the miserable van back to London with David Immergluck, Morgan, and the crew. That was it.

When we arrived Sundsvall
You thought the hotel not good enough
I lost my shit
And clearly took things too far
Played one last show in Örebro
Blew off the UK dates
You put your tail between your legs
And headed back to Santa Cruz
 
We really hate your guts
And we will never be your friend again
We really hate your guts
And we will never be your friend again
+++++++++++
David Lowery: vocals and guitars
Luke Moller: fiddle




A Eurail pass from the 1980s.

Stream or order this album here. 

The Eurail Pass, originally known as the Europass, held special significance for many in my generation. It was offered by a consortium of European rail companies to promote tourism. The concept was simple: you purchased this pass and could hop on and off nearly any train in participating European countries, traveling almost anywhere you desired. Naturally, it became quite popular among American college students of my generation.
In my song, I use the Europass as a broad metaphor for my decidedly hedonistic tour of Europe with Camper Van Beethoven. I had just broken up with my long-time girlfriend (referenced in the song “Mexican Chickens”), and thus began a period of indulgence and misadventure.

I took a red-eye out of L.A.
To London Heathrow
The fucking Columbia Hotel
With a bath down the hall
Now I’m drunk in the bar
On the floor looking for
Fifty pence to make a phone call
Down the hall
Pretty please look at these
Mrs V you could be my spirit animal
For a while

The song begins with me drinking at the infamous and somewhat seedy Columbia Hotel in London. Originally, the Columbia Hotel was a collection of five Victorian townhouses that served various purposes over the years, including residences for opium dealers, merchants, and generals. During World War II, it functioned as a Red Cross hospital run by Lady Randolph Churchill. In the 1960s, it became an Air Force officers’ club. By the late 1970s, it had transformed into a “rock and roll” hotel where touring bands stayed.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the hotel’s bar was the place to be after shows let out. It was often filled with members of several bands, their crews, entourages, and various hangers-on. In the mid-1990s, Oasis famously trashed the place and was permanently banned.
As I mentioned, it wasn’t a glamorous hotel. Performers stayed there because it had a rock and roll vibe. The cheaper rooms had shared baths, and most rooms didn’t have phones, certainly not for international calls. In the hallway off the lobby, there was a bank of pay phones. To make a call back to the States, you needed a teacup full of coins to continuously feed into the phone due to the high rates. There was invariably a line of foreign musicians waiting to call their girlfriends or wives back home. In the song, I can’t find any change to call a girl back in the States, so I start hitting on a random girl in the bar.
 
If I make it out the other side
I will be a king and you will be queen
But that’s only if I make it out the other side
it’s totally unclear that I will ever get my shit together
If I make it out the other side
I will be an archduke and you will be some kind of lady
If I make it out the other side
If I make it out the other side


Musically, the verses are driven by a “four beat,” often referred to as a “Motown beat,” with a snare on each quarter note. However, the chorus cuts the tempo in half and shifts to a standard backbeat, effectively reducing the tempo to a quarter. This deliberate juxtaposition mirrors the contrast found in the lyrics.

In the verses, the mood is gritty and frenetic, reflecting disarray and spontaneity. The lyrics describe fleeting connections with women who are referred to as “spirit animals.” In contrast, the choruses slow down the tempo and introduce grandiose dreams. Here, I imagine myself as royalty, an archduke, a film director, or a cult leader, promising deeper connections with women whom I elevate to titles like queens, ladies, muses, or movie stars. Despite these grand visions, there’s always a warning that I may crash and burn before achieving any of these dreams, leading back to the next verse, which invariably tears down anything built up in the previous chorus. Hence, the line: “I’m so full of shit, I’m in this for what I can get.”

This musical and lyrical structure provides an honest reflection of where my head was during that tour.

Now it’s time for me to go
That’s the end of the show
Forget the promises made
Already on the ship Dover-Calais
 
So classic girl our little thing
In Groningen don’t mean a thing
I got a Europass appetite
So play guitar and hold the mic
And stare straight out into the light
Never let them see you sweat or smile
 
If I make it out the other side
I will be a film director
You will be my favorite actress
If I make it out the other side
Though it’s totally unclear that
I will ever get my shit together
If I make it out the other side
I will be the circus master
You will be my favorite acrobat
If I make it out
Promise if I make it out

I’m so full of shit
I’m in this for what I can get
In a Bochum disco blue light
A cheap thrill
A good high
You in the skinny pants
Come with me we can dance
Doing lines in der Zandbankbar
Come with me to Copenhagen
You are now my favorite flavor
Ghost you later in the Free Town
 
If I make it out the other side
I will be a cult leader
You will be my number one acolyte
If I make it out
Though it’s totally unclear that I will ever
Get my shit together
If I make it out the other side
You will be my muse
And I will always be your faithful servant
If I make it out
Promise if I make it out the other side

There are a couple of other interesting notes about the recording. I originally recorded the acoustic guitar and banjo years ago in my home in Richmond, VA. It was a piece of music for which I didn’t have lyrics at the time. In the second chorus, there was always some percussion noise, like bells or a tambourine. It didn’t sound bad, so I didn’t try to remove it, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t until we were mixing the track that the engineer, Drew Vandenberg, isolated the sound. He didn’t recognize it, but I immediately knew what it was. It was my son’s old dog, Scylla, standing up and shaking. The very familiar sound of that dog’s tags and harness must have been recorded when I was playing the banjo part.

The pedal steel solo played by Pistol is intentionally not a clichéd pedal steel part. He wanted it to sound more like a saxophone solo. If you listen closely, you can tell.

++++++++++++++++++
Bryan Howard: bass
David Lowery: guitars, banjo and vocals
Luke Moller: fiddles
Carlton Owens: drums
Matt “Pistol” Stoessel: pedal steel

Stream or order this album here. 

While much of the narrative on this record remains strictly factual, this particular song is different. I’ve created a composite and fictionalized parts of the story to protect the privacy of real people. However, I’ve kept the account of my own actions accurate, as it’s important for me to take responsibility and make amends. For this reason there is no background for this song. The lyrics tell the rest of the story, reflecting my journey and the consequences of my actions.

Mexican Chickens
Went out the door
Into the morning darkness 
Gravel under foot 
Heard the screen door gently close 

I slid across the seat
Steering wheel was cold
Tiny icicles on the glass 
In the corner of the windows 

The desert air was dry 
They were melted in the instant
I pulled on to the highway
And I began cry

I was leaving her behind
Was really for the best
I had something deep inside
Boundless anger without reason

We all got someone we left behind 
Cause we’re just weren’t right in our hearts and our minds
Yeah we all got someone we were lucky to find in the first place

We all got someone we never treated right
We were selfish and the drinking staying out all night
We all got someone we were lucky to find in the first place

When she awakes
I hope she’s not sad
Loved her from the first time 
I laid my eyes upon her

Got a little house
Drove a truck played in a band
Got some Mexican chickens
And we raised them on our land

Talked of having little girls 
They’d have their mothers little curls
It was more than a dream
Yeah one day they’d be real 

I played out on the road 
At first she came along
Sang the harmonies mixed the sound
Sold the albums and the singles 

I hung out in the bar
Drinking until the closing time
I was foolish I was selfish
I’d find her sleeping in the car

We all got someone we left behind 
Cause we’re just weren’t right in our hearts and our minds
Yeah we all got someone we were lucky to find in the first place

We all got someone we never treated right
We were selfish and the drinking staying out all night
We all got someone we were lucky to find in the first place

She went back to our house
To feed and raise the animals
We slowly grew apart
And I was growing meaner

I drank when I got up
Cause motel room was hot
Or something stupid I had done
I was lonely for my girl

There was always someone else 
And then there was another
I could barely stand myself
I was stoned all the time

When I finally came back home
She said something changed inside you
I smashed a glass against the wall 
Went out walking in the desert

When I come on back 
She was sleeping peacefully
I knew that she was better
Better off without me

The little girls were there
I saw their faces in her hair
But now it was clear
I would never be their father

I put on my coat and hat
Slid the dead bolt in the hasp
Took one last look back at her
I stepped across the threshold

+++++++++++++++

Bryan Howard: bass
David Lowery: guitar and vocals
Carlton Owens: drums
Matt “Pistol” Stoessel: pedal steel
Megan Slankard: backing vocals