This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Eamon Doyle
Music by Peter Lauterborn

***

Justice is rare in middle school
You make one faux pas, suddenly you're gay
Justine never knew the rules
Well, neither did I
But that's okay

So I don't live the way you do
Why should you let it bother you?
Pants are pants and shoes are shoes
Pants are pants are pants and shoes are shoes

I've skipped a lot of parties
That I knew I'd have no business at
I am a sensitive artist
And you know what?
I'm just fine with that

So I don't live the way you do
Why do you let it bother you?
Pants are pants and shoes are shoes
Pants are pants are pants and shoes are shoes

It's apparent I'm aberrant
But since the shoe fits, I will wear it
And wear it well
It's apparent I'm aberrant
But since the shoe fits, I will wear it
And wear it well
Well...

I don't live the way you do
But don't you let it bother you
Pants are pants and shoes are shoes
Pants are pants and shoes are shoes
Pants are pants are pants and shoes are shoes

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals
Peter Lauterborn: electric guitar, electric bass, keyboards, drum programming, turntable

Pants Are Pants

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics and music by Peter Lauterborn and Eamon Doyle

***

When I'd see her Tuesday nights
I'd ask about her plans
Never dreaming they'd involve
An interloping man
If it hadn't been a blur
She wouldn't have obeyed
I never said that she was wrong
But I felt so betrayed

When I'd commit some petty crime
You'd think she'd understand
Thinking she was in the right
She was controlled, for sure
But what did it mean to her?

Week after week she went
Trying to meet her needs
Crying over all she spent
She was still incomplete

After she went the second time
She was in his command
And couldn't bear to tell me that
She gave in to his lure
But what were we to her?

One and a half men is all that she needs
She's found one and a half men begging on their knees
While half simply owes her, the other adores her
She's found one and a half men too many to please

She's found one and a half men
She's found one and a half men
She's found one and a half men
She's found one and a half men

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, electric guitar, electric bass, drum programming

One and a Half Men

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Eamon Doyle
Music by Peter Lauterborn

***

You may not like me now, but we have one thing in common:
We're both in love with math
So let's attempt to solve this problem
Break down the factors of these two actors
You'll see that I'm the one your left brain is after
Well, you might want to subtract me, but I just want to add you
So to break into your quadrant, I'll do everything I have to
Give me a sign—am I going off on a tangent?
I took my hope for us and I graphed it
Why ask if the probability of this working out is low?
Let's just try to make it function and see how it goes
We can dig trig or the Next Big Thing
Formulaic love I promise not to bring
Overlook my defects as I solve for 3x
'Cause what I lack in brains, I make up in respect
And I hope that if you find me statistically deficient
You'll at least find me linguistically exquisite
Take my digits in yours
See what I have to offer
We'll have memories to store if we just divide and conquer
And honey, I promise you that as long as I'm able
I'll keep on preparing you the finest In-Out tables
Peace out

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, drum programming

Love and Math

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Eamon Doyle
Music by Eamon Doyle and Peter Lauterborn

***

Up 'til four, and it ain't New Year's
Fucked up on Rhapsody and root beer
Got a brain, but I can't use it
Living on just air and music

Well, you don't have to tell me
I know this can't be healthy

But I am not your kind of dope fiend
I have my own kind of protein
I just can't get my mom to believe me
I'm not on drugs
But I probably should be

These days I am in fragments
These days I am a magnet
Seems like when I walk the streets
Everybody wants a piece of me

Hands full and pockets empty
The deck is stacked against me

Right about now I should be scared
It's all coming down, but I still can't care
And I get so stuck when I get in deep
I don't know what to do
But fall asleep

Or stay up 'til four when it ain't New Year's
Fucked up on Rhapsody and root beer
Got a brain, but I can't use it
Living on just air and music

Well, you don't have to tell me
I know this can't be healthy

But I am not your kind of dope fiend
I have my own kind of protein
I just can't get my mom to believe me
I'm not on drugs
But I probably should be

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals, electric guitars
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, electric bass, drum programming

I'm Not on Drugs

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Eamon Doyle
Music by Eamon Doyle and Peter Lauterborn

***

November has ended
December's descended
And now more than ever I'm sure:
I was right, they were wrong
I've been right all along
I need a geographical cure

I have to begin again
This hasn't been my year
My name is Andrew Finnegan
And I'm finna get outta here

I have to begin again
This hasn't been my year
My name is Andrew Finnegan
And I'm finna get outta here

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals, electric guitar
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, drum programming

Nowhere, CA

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics and music by Eamon Doyle

***

Stung by a bee
Stung by a bee
Just walking down the street, and I got stung by a bee
I never bothered him, but still he had it in for me
I can't talk at the moment
I've been stung by a bee

Poked in the eye
Poked in the eye
Minding my own business, and I got poked in the eye
I don't know what his motive was
I'd never met the guy
I can't come to your party
I've been poked in the eye

Hit by a car
Hit by a car
I never saw it coming
I got hit by a car
It was moving pretty fast, and yeah, it threw me pretty far
I'd love to stay and chat, but I've been hit by a car

Violently ill
Violently ill
I must've eaten something bad, because I'm violently ill
Every pore is leaking blood and bile, filth and swill
No, I can't help with your homework
I'm violently ill

Bleeding to death
Bleeding to death
I hope you all are happy
Now I'm bleeding to death
Thank you, David
Thank you, Sara
Thank you, Andy and Beth
You wouldn't let me be, and now I'm bleeding
To death

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals, acoustic guitar, acoustic banjo
Peter Lauterborn: egg shaker, the merest dash of keyboard

Stung by a Bee

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Morgan "Ducky" Neiman
Music by Peter Lauterborn and Morgan "Ducky" Neiman

***

They traded roles three days ago
It's a sweet surprise
He's a soulful alibi
It'll weaken her, how easy he goes
Such is love all around
She's so easily aroused

Dear boy
Please burn
To break
And learn
It's a psychosomatic vaccine
It's a cardinal-injected empathy

I'll feel it too if I soon forget
You're a fighter full and fledged
I'm a lover with an edge
This is honesty under influence
It's a balance, it's a fall
It's a win or not at all

Dear boy
Please fail
We'll break
We'll bail
Losing hope is the game that we play
Take the pressure off your feet
It's your home and it's the streets

***

Eamon Doyle: backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, drum programming
Morgan "Ducky" Neiman: lead vocals

Dear Boy [featuring Ducky]

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Peter Lauterborn
Music by Peter Lauterborn and Jack Piskorski

***

Once I knew
That she would start
Ending somewhere
And looking the part
Shamelessly fading
Freely she's saying
"I know someone
Who lost what they need"
I'm not able
To stop what she's doing
Hurting these people
No one can say:

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You should never be sincere

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You'll never come around

You're moving us
Somewhere else
Pushing our bodies
Left our spirits behind
You're looking at
Yourself in the morning
Stare at the mirror
And stand there in shame
You have no bounds
You are no martyr
Standing so proudly
Thinking you're smarter

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You should never be sincere

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You'll never come around

You have no bounds
You are no martyr
Standing so proudly
Thinking you're smarter

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You should never be sincere

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You'll never come around

Eleanor, please
You're hurting them now
And we can't tell you how
Eleanor, please
You're telling us how
You should never be sincere

***

Eamon Doyle: lead vocals
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, drum programming
Caryl Carino: backing vocals
Jack Piskorski: electric guitar

Eleanor Please

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Written by Peter Lauterborn

***

Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, electric guitar, drum programming

Michigan Tragedy

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Eamon Doyle
Music by Eamon Doyle and Peter Lauterborn

***

(One, two, three, four)

Tuesday morning went according to plan
I headed for the store at dawn with my money in hand
But I'm surprised they even bothered
To put you in stock
I picked it up for next to nothing
And that's just what I got

I got it
But I just don't get it, yeah
Your new album sucks
I bought it
But now I regret it, yeah
Your new album sucks

I guess no one's immune to the sophomore slump
It's not growing on me; it's going off to the dump
And I'm surprised they even bothered
To put you in stock
What the hell happened?
Your last album rocked

I got it
But I just don't get it, yeah
Your new album sucks
I bought it
But now I regret it, yeah
Your new album sucks (Here we go)

That was my five-ninety-nine, and I feel I've been cheated
Now you're in the clearance bin, and you're cheap for a reason
I don't want you to grow or reinvent or explore
You're out of print, so take the hint
And just do what you did before

I got it
But I just don't get it, yeah
Your new album sucks
I bought it
But now I regret it, yeah
Your new album sucks

I got it
But I just don't get it, yeah
Your new album sucks
I bought it
But now I regret it, yeah
Your new album sucks
Your new album sucks

***

Eamon Doyle: lead vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitars
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, electric bass, drum programming, backing vocals, climactic bark

Your New Album Sucks

This track is from the album Thirteen-Pack and available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/freesoda.

***

Lyrics by Eamon Doyle
Music by Peter Lauterborn and Eamon Doyle

***

Once things were good
Now things are bad
And getting worse still
I have nothing to add

But maybe that's for the better
I never could put two and two together

***

Eamon Doyle: vocals
Peter Lauterborn: keyboards, electric guitar, drum programming

Nothing to Add

Free Soda comprises Eamon Doyle and Peter Lauterborn, who began collaborating on music in Lauterborn’s makeshift bedroom studio in the fall of 2001, while both were juniors at a high school in San Francisco. "Before sophomore year," says Doyle, "neither of us had played an instrument more complex than the triangle. But it had been my boyhood dream to become a gawky, unrefined guitarist, and Peter had always wanted to be a bumbling, amateurish keyboard player. It was a match made in clueless heaven."

In 2004, after three years of finding their musical feet, the guys gave themselves a name, one chosen for its intimation of universal appeal: Who doesn't like free soda? Armed with a well-oiled drum machine and what the Welsh rock group Stereophonics called "just enough education to perform," they were ready to call themselves a band.

Thirteen-Pack, released in December 2007, represents the best of the duo's eclectic pop songcraft and DIY production. Lead track "Pants Are Pants" kicks off with a snarling garage-rock riff and a deadpan recollection of the horrors of middle-school mores, and in the rest of its 2:14 running time packs in frenetic keyboards, backward percussion, a stick-to-your-brain singsong chorus, and strategically placed lyrical allusions to King Missile and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Says Doyle of the song: "I wanted to write about my ongoing frustration with the myriad unwritten social rules that become apparent in sixth grade or so—about the unpleasant realization that if you're wearing the wrong pants or using the wrong vernacular or hanging out with the wrong people, you will be crucified—and having the common sense to see through all that superficiality and just say, 'Fuck it, pants are pants.' We apply the same pragmatism to our music. I can't imagine a more appropriate opener."

Next up is "Fireplace," a stark acoustic lament about the fear of skeletons in one's closet being discovered. "That particular brand of paranoia is all but universal," says Doyle. "It's ambiguous what the speaker in the song is so desperate to cover up, because whether it's a felony or just the bad poetry he wrote in high school, the panic is the same."

The disparateness of the love songs on Thirteen-Pack demonstrates Free Soda's disinclination to tread the same sonic or thematic ground twice. "Pomegranate" is a spirited anthem about the "sweet and complex" human equivalent of the titular fruit; "One and a Half Men" is a slow-burning romantic-betrayal tale with an explosive coda; and "Love and Math" is a droll nerd-rap punfest. "Even within the confines of the most conventional song subject," notes Lauterborn, "we can't help but mix it up. Repeating ourselves is just as boring as repeating someone else."

Two complementary songs compose the center of the album. The provocatively titled "I'm Not on Drugs" is neither pro- nor antidrug, but rather "about the altered state of chronic frustration," says Doyle. "During my second and third semesters of college, I was essentially a contemporary embodiment of the narrator of Green Day's 'Longview,' but with digital music instead of TV and root beer instead of weed. So I wrote this really introspective mini-epic to say, 'Hey, I can screw up my life on my own. I'm not into mind-altering substances, but I've become such a slacker, I might as well be.'"

Where "Drugs" is jagged, rambling, and angsty, "Nowhere, CA," its musical and autobiographical postscript, is smooth, efficient, and self-assured. "It's your classic 'I'm getting out of this town before it kills me' song," says Doyle. "The lyrics don't mention California, but I gave it that title because so many people who have never been to California romanticize it as some kind of carefree, neverending beach party, when in reality it has as many soul-deadening bump-on-a-log towns as any other state."

Then there's "Stung by a Bee," a demented folk ditty that combines Jack Johnsonesque strum-thwack guitar with dashes of banjo, egg shaker, and subtle gallows humor. "It's about a guy who's too stoic to really stand up for himself," says Doyle. "Any similarity to me is purely coincidental and unintentional."

In between stretches of recording and mixing, Lauterborn discovered Morgan Neiman, a local indie-pop artist who records under the name Ducky. Impressed by her songwriting and vocal skills, he invited her to complete a long-abandoned Free Soda track. The result is "Dear Boy," in which Ducky sings of a tremulous relationship over a rich soundscape of synth strings and jangly guitars. "Ducky brought amazing energy and enthusiasm to the project," says Lauterborn. "And boy, can she ever belt it out."

"Eleanor Please," an ominous piano ballad about a detrimental imbalance of power, also benefited from a guest appearance: that of Jack Piskorski, who joined the duo on lead guitar for their inaugural live performance and was subsequently invited to shred all over the song's protracted coda. "For someone who's so modest about his abilities, Jack has a great instinct for how to make a song five times better," says Lauterborn. "His contribution to 'Eleanor' was no exception."

The inclusion of a relentlessly snotty number called "Your New Album Sucks" at the end of Free Soda's debut album prompts the question: How can a couple of guys stringing songs together in a bedroom studio afford to be so preemptively cocky? But Doyle insists that the message isn't as straightforward as the title might lead listeners to assume: "In the bridge, I sing: 'I don't want you to grow or reinvent or explore / You're out of print, so take the hint / And just do what you did before.' Many devotees of popular music develop that sense of entitlement to immediate gratification. The song argues both sides of the issue, one explicitly, one implicitly. That said, it's a lot of fun to play, and hopefully a lot of fun to hear."

Free Soda

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