Jenny from Thebes

Title: Jenny from Thebes
Released: 2023
Label: Merge Records

Liner Notes

(inside of CD wallet):

JENNY USED TO LET ABSOLUTELY ANYBODY CRASH AT HER PLACE. IT WAS LIKE A YEAR-ROUND CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. IF YOU HAD ANY SECRETS, SHE DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW, AND THE ONES SHE HAD SHE KEPT TO HERSELF. THERE WAS A BIG WALL HEATER DOWN AT ONE END OF THE HALLWAY AND A BIG, DARK LIVING ROOM AT THE OTHER. ONE ELECTRIC LAMPBY THE COUCH IF YOU NEEDED IT, ALL EXITS VISIBLE TO THE EYE FROM THERE. SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAD NEED OF JENNY'S PLACE WERE ALL RIGHT AND SOME WEREN'T EVER GOING TO GET RIGHT, AND SHE'D ALREADY GOTTEN SEVERAL LETTERS FROM THE CITY ADVISING HER TO KEEP A LOWER PROFILE UNLESS SHE WHATED TROUBLE BUT THEN I ENTERED THE PICTURE. BAD LUCK. LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE WHO CAME THROUGH I WAS TRYING TO FIND A BETTER DIRECTION BUT IT DIDN'T WORK OUT THAT WAY. PRYING EYES SHOULD HAVE TENDED TO THEIR OWN BUSINESS. PEOPLE DON'T THINK TOWNS LIKE OURS CAN TURN INTO BATTLEGROUNDS BUT WE HAD A WAR HERE. THERE. I DON'T LIVE THERE ANY MORE EITHER. I LEFT WHEN JENNY LEFT. IT'S JUST A SPOT ON THE MAP NOW. WE RODE TOGETHER FOR A WHILE BUT THEN WE LOST EACH OTHER. SOMETIMES I THINKK I HEAR FROM HER BUT OHTER TIMES I THINK I'M JUST DREAMING. NOBODY KNOWS WHERE ANYBODY LANDED. YOU DON'T KEEP IN TOUCH WHEN THE WAR DOESN'T GO YOUR WAY.

The narrator of "Cleaning Crew"—the "I"—is Jenny from All Hail West Texas. She's speaking to the narrator of "Source Decay" from the same album. Enterprising travelers will work out the rest.

Album Credits
Footnotes

Clean Slate¹²

One from East St. Louis³
With a scar beneath his eye
Left the kitchen spotless
On the day he said goodbye
Breakaway republic³ dude
Supremely filthy mouth
Copiah Mississippi
Points much further south

It's never light outside yet
When they climb into the van
Remember at your peril
Forget the ones you can

Leave home feeling empty
Change planes in Taipei³
Stay awake the whole time
End up several worlds away
The house was almost full that day
They made a space for you
This world is sad and broken
Gotta fix a crack or two

Rest until you're rested,
Climb back onto the caravan
Remember at your peril
Forget the ones you can

And then just when you think
You've learned how to forget
You learn it's just
The ones who haven't risen to the surface yet

Absence after absence
Keep the place secure
This will be the last time that I do this
I'm pretty sure
No one lasts for long in this profession,
So they say
Maybe see you again someday

Every endpoint fixed forever
On the day its arc began
Remember at your peril
Forget the ones you can
Forget the ones you can

Ground Level⁴

You can make out all the exits
From a static position
One quick walkaround will give you
All the relevant information
I'm never going to break my neck
Falling downstairs
Tan and mustard-yellow I-beam
Visible from the air

Tall space heater
Down the main hallway
Blue pilot light
Hissing all night

We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf
We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf
We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf
We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf

You can light a cigarette
Against the cooktop if you need to
Feel the heat against your forehead
Let it bleed through
You're never going to get by
On three hours' sleep a night
Unless you absolutely have to
And then you get by all right

Move in silence
If you can't stay still
Nobody sees your face
Through the security grille

We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf
We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf
We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf
We sleep light in the shadow of the cloverleaf

Only One Way⁵

You're going to get a wrinkle on your forehead
You're gonna get a click in your knee
You're gonna tell the doctor that you can't sleep
And you're up every night until three

You're gonna make a bargain with the bad guys
You're gonna make some choices you regret
There's no place to hide from the prophecy
Since nobody told you it falls to me

There's only one way out
There's only one way out
There's only one way through
No matter what you do

You're gonna have to watch for the signs
You're gonna have to learn how to read
Nobody's gonna hand you a flashlight
You're gonna have to steal what you need

You're gonna have some trouble at the border
They're never gonna let you forget
I'm just passing on the information
Beaming down to me from a distant station

There's only one way out
There's only one way out
I've been told there's only one way through
No matter what you do
But if all that's true
What about you?
What about you?

Fresh Tattoo⁶⁷

Tattoo of the seventh shield
Still wet on my skin
You're all crumpled up at the curb there
I think I'm going to take you in
Always had to follow my instincts
Usually I'm out on my own
You there by the road, wet and helpless
What happens if I take you home?

Well, you may forget the whys and wheres
Of an old tattoo on your forearm there
But usually you recall the day you got one
And usually it fades in the sun

Headed for a season in exile
As the oracle predicted
According to reliable sources
In thirty days I'm getting evicted
Trying not to scratch where it itches
It takes a certain level of discipline
Not even half a second by the light switch
Let the future flood right in

Well, you may forget the whys and wheres
Of an old tattoo on your forearm there
But usually you recall the day you got one
And usually it fades in the sun

Usually the lines grow faint
Like old house paint
Just a way to mark the years gone by
You lay on the couch three weeks
Until the color came back into your cheeks
I'd seen ones like you before
Plenty came through before

Legend on the shield in Greek
"What's that say?" you said
I gave you an answer that I thought you'd buy
All of this will disappear in the twinkling of an eye

Well, you may forget the whys and wheres
Of an old tattoo on your forearm there
But usually you recall the day you got one
And usually it fades in the sun
But not this one

Cleaning Crew⁸

You were passed out on the sofa
Cigarette burns and coffee stains
Loose change in your pocket
Naltrexone in your veins

They got a scanner at the airport now
And a dropout in a Kevlar vest
I can hear the timer
Ticking in my chest

What are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do when the cleaning crew comes through?

When you get out on your own again
If you ever do shake free
If you find yourself in Portland
Ask about me

Dig up the first revision
The one who's got less to lose
Look on every lamppost
From here to Baton Rouge

Ask yourself one question
Then ask yourself again

What are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do when the cleaning crew comes through?

It's better if you have a plan
It's better if you have a plan

I saw the future in an oil slick
It told me what I needed to know
Leave a little stain behind you everywhere you go

Murder at the 18th Street Garage⁹

I'm in the repair bay casting spells
Mystic in the glow of the spotlight
Ringing out the funeral bells
Tending the fires, gathering power
May I present the man of the hour

Placing his faith in the strength of the safety visor
Placing his faith in the strength of the safety visor
Leaving only slightly diminished
Older but wiser

I'm down on the concrete with a bucket and rag
When you've got a big job to do
You notice how the moments drag
Live in the present, savor the grind
Relish the time before you have to leave it behind

Placing your faith in the strength of the safety visor
Placing your faith in the strength of the safety visor
Leaving only slightly diminished
Older but wiser

Smarter but scared, now
Wearing an exile's mark
One that's going to glow in the dark

I'm out on the sidewalk, scrubbed clean
Take all your worry and care
Feed it to the big machine
Once you commit to the turn, you're going to have to follow through
Cover your eyes when the splash comes
It's the only thing you can do

Placing your faith in the strength of the safety visor
Placing your faith in the strength of the safety visor
Leaving only slightly diminished
Older but wiser

From the Nebraska Plant¹⁰¹¹¹²

I recall the curb
Waiting for the bus
Flaky yellow paint
What's become of us

Searching in the snow
For something in the distance
When the vision comes
I have no resistance

It's one of several iterations
It gets hard to keep track
On your custom Kawasaki¹³
With the stinger on the back

Walk across the bridge
Used to get so scared
Signed out AMA¹⁴
No-one really cared

It wasn't in your nature
Taking in the strays
But you handed me your helmet
I clung to you for days

But I am strong now, I am strong now
That was all years back
On your custom Kawasaki¹³
Chrome yellow and black

It's somewhere in a wreckyard now
Never see it again on this earth
Let the scavengers proclaim
How much it was worth

Out here on the median
Not sure what to do
Figure something's got to happen sometime
I wait all day for you

I wait all day for you

Flak jacket full of holes
Kevlar coated and dusty black
On your custom Kawasaki¹³ with the stinger on the back

Same as Cash¹⁵

You were still attached to your Civic sedan,
Although the brakes always needed repair
You were headed out to buy some supplies
You could smell the threat of rain in the air
I can only see the scene second-hand
I can only try to understand
How a small amount of pressure in the right place
Breaks the strongest link in the chain
In your car with your head in your hands
At the far end of the Walmart parking lot
Trying not to buckle under the strain

Every single night after prime time
Loud enough to hear in your sleep
The salesman from the lot half a mile from here
Yelling down the hood of his Jeep
I’ll take anything that the others won’t
I can see the value where others don’t
Just a small amount of pressure in the right place
Two fingers to the temporal vein
In your car with your head in your hands
At the far end of the Walmart parking lot
Trying not to buckle under the strain

Striking a bargain with the imp in your brain
Prepared to take another knock for the short gain
But you can ask any veteran running back
Eventually your joints complain

You were headed home at 80 miles an hour
With your fingers sweating under your gloves
Everyone deserves a little light in their hair
Everybody needs to love, and be loved
That’s what all the people say, anyway
I can save my thoughts for another day
Maybe a small amount of pressure in the right place
Anything to help with the pain
In your car with your head in your hands
At the far end of the Walmart parking lot
Trying not to buckle under the strain

Water Tower¹⁶

Moving lights on an overhead map
Have to be headed somewhere
There's probably going to be a building burning in town
When you smell smoke in the air
Small hopes are seen to still be small ones¹⁷
When the hour grows late
And a body floating in a water tower
Is bound to take on weight

Somebody comes bearing the standard
Just when you need to see it held high
You never miss your water¹⁸
Until you're parched, riding home from the slaughter
Oracles are seen emerging
From the northern mists
And a body floating in a water tower
Is bound at the ankles and wrists

Bound at the ankles and wrists
Marks in the skin
From where the ropes have been digging right in

Men of legend built the cities of the prairie
To rise from the horizon at night
Feel something bigger than me
When I see them trapped in the headlight
Head east, head north by northeast
Get my bearing and know
That a body floating in a water tower
Only has one way to go

Float downstream
Let me float downstream
Floating downstream

Jenny III¹⁹

Jenny was a warrior, Jenny was a thief
Jenny hit the corner clinic begging for relief
Never thought we'd see the day when she wiggled free
But she did
Long before we did

Nights in crackling emerald
Signal hot and live
Fastest in production
As of 1985
Didn't guess we'd ever come to dread that engine's roar
But she did
Long before we did

Nobody will ever know for certain
The names of all the secrets
She held back behind the curtain

Jenny came to get me
She'd been gone for several years
Aging motorcycles purr like cats when they grow near
I was crying, I could barely make the frame out through my tears
She did
Long before we did
She did
Long before we did
Jenny, you did
Long before I did

Going to Dallas²⁰

Nobody's ever gonna pour
Plaster in my tracks
My exit will be clean
When I vanish from the scene
You won't find any thumbprints
To dust your powder into
Just mute donkeys still as statues
In each saloon I've been through

Going to Dallas
As far as anybody knows
Maybe Montana²¹
Depending on the way the wind blows

No blinking red light on the line tonight²²
Or any night out in the future
Kiss the people you hold dear
Forget that I was ever here
If world should reach you from the field
Be cool
Try not to talk out of school
Make them beat it out of you if they want it
Live like a pack mule

Going to Dallas
As far as anyone's concerned
Maybe Montana²¹
Depending on the way the roads turn

And if they steer me wrong
I'm just going to play along
Remember this when the time comes
Try to let it soften the blow

Let me go to no haven anyone would yearn for
Burn a hole in something for me
Turn around and let me go free

Going to Dallas
In the morning when the wind is fair
Maybe Montana²¹
If I've got enough gas to get there

Great Pirates²³²⁴

On the morning when I stop looking back
I'll be up to see the sunrise in deep bruised black
And bright blood red, and pale desert rose
And several other colors like those

Great pirates testing the waves
Great pirates testing the waves

Everybody gone from here
May you all emerge free and clear
And may you do some good where you go
High in the hands of the crosswinds, or in the arms of the undertow

Great pirates testing the waves
Great pirates testing the waves

And calling the roll—let's see:
Just me
And checking the rigging before
Heading off to war

Peach rose black sky up early
Carry what I need to carry
Bury what I have to bury
Dancing, whistling, singing past the cemetery

Great pirates testing the waves
Great pirates testing the waves

Album Credits

Recorded January 16-22, 2023, at the Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Produced, recorded, and mixed by Trina Shoemaker, assisted by Isaiah Page and Cade Roberts. Mastered by Brent Lambert. Played by Alicia Bognanno, John Darnielle, Matt Douglas, Peter Hughes, and Jon Wurster, joined by Matt Nathanson and Kathy Valentine. Arrangements for strings and horn by Matt Douglas; strings played by Karen Galvin. Trombone by Evan Ringel. All songs ©2023 Cadmean Dawn (ASCAP) administered worldwide by Me Gusta Music. Represented by Ryan Matteson and Kevin O'Halloran for Ten Atoms. Design by Daniel Murphy.

Footnotes

This song has an official lyric video. ↩

Each song on this album has a subtitle, written on the back cover along with the track listing. "Clean Slate" is subtitled: "New arrival at the safehouse" ↩

This song contains a few references to "Color in Your Cheeks" from All Hail West Texas. East St. Louis and Taipei are mentioned in both songs, and the "breakaway republic" might be "Soviet Georgia." ↩ ↩ ↩

Subtitle: "There was, en route to greener pastures, a small house in the city" ↩

Subtitle: "They consider one another in the often harsh light of how the world is" ↩

This song has an official lyric video. ↩

Subtitle: "She commemorates her present station on her forearm" ↩

Subtitle: "The next best thing to an actual goodbye" ↩

Subtitle: "Behold, you may not rezone my house" ↩

Subtitle: "The future, seen from a hard place" ↩

Before Jenny from Thebes was announced, during the Returning Spectral Tide tour (Summer 2023), one of twelve Jenny from Thebes-themed stickers, accompanied by a card containing one of the first tewlve lines of "From the Nebraska Plant," was sold at the merch table for each of the first twelve shows. ↩

There has been a Kawasaki factory in Lincoln, Nebraska since 1974. ↩

This is a reference to the "new Kawasaki, all yellow and black" in the song "Jenny" from All Hail West Texas. Kawasaki Heavy Industries is a Japanese company that makes, among other things, motircycles. As for the "stinger," it is unclear to the author of this site what it may be; one possibility is a type of motorcycle-exhaust-pipe modification. ↩ ↩ ↩

Here, AMA is likely an abbreviation of "Against Medical Advice," a phrase used when a patient leaves the hospital againt their doctor's advice. ↩

Subtitle: "She trades in her old car and buys a Kawasaki GPz750 Turbo" ↩

Subtitle: "She disposes of the body" ↩

Sometimes sung "Small hopes are seen to not be small ones" e.g. The Egg, Albany, NY, October 11, 2024. ↩

Posibly a reference to "You Don't Miss Your Water" by William Bell, a soul song that has been covered by many artists, including Otis Redding, the Byrds, and Jerry Lee Lewis. ↩

Subtitle: "The future, seen with great clarity" ↩

Subtitle: "As far as anyone's concerned" ↩

The song "Night Light" from Transcendental Youth contains the line "Jenny calls from Montana." ↩ ↩ ↩

The song "Night Light" from Transcendental Youth contains the line "I was a red dot blinking on a screen up overhead." ↩

Subtitle: "The future they both deserve" ↩

There are two things this could be referencing. First, the song "Jenny" from All Hail West Texas contains the line "The pirate's life for me." Second, there is a famous song called "Pirate Jenny" from the play The Threepenny Opera. ↩

Jenny from Thebes

Liner Notes

Table of Contents

Clean Slate 1 2

Ground Level 4

Only One Way 5

Fresh Tattoo 6 7

Cleaning Crew 8

Murder at the 18th Street Garage 9

From the Nebraska Plant 10 11 12

Same as Cash 15

Water Tower 16

Jenny III 19

Going to Dallas 20

Great Pirates 23 24