Back when we were 21, Rex (a guitarist) and I (a shitty drummer) drank a bottle of Jameson, swapped instruments, and messily made up and recorded a who-gives-a-shit garage rock anthem. It was called "Shrug." The picture is us fighting Superman.

LYRICS FOR "SHRUG"
I don't want to grow up.
I don't want to grow old.
Renegades and hooligans
in masquerades are in school again,
but you think that this could be the education
that you always wanted, always needed,
but you never completed.
"Never completed?"
You never completed.

So what's the answer?
Shrug.
So what's the answer?
Shrug.
The answer's always shrug.
You better get your money back.
You didn't learn shit.
You're still a fuckin' idiot,
still a fuckin' prick.

Who do you think you are, as if you're smarter?
Who do you think you are, as if you're some martyr?

Getting laid on the weekend,
getting screwed during the workweek;
you've got drugs?
I've got time, you know...

Goddamn, scavengers!
Well, ah man, now I surrender.
You better go get that gun from underneath my bed.
Bang, bang! Pop, pop! You're dead!

Smoking with the boys,
drinking with the girls;
getting high in my garage,
getting drunk in my backyard;
constant input, constant change,
evolution and decay.

This is the last time that I take the fall,
for you will be the thing that I miss most
about Southern California.

Who do you think you are, as if you're smarter?
Who do you think you are, as if you're some martyr?

So what's the answer?
I bet it's "Shrug."

Shrug

After an Easter celebration, Grant and I recorded this bit in the basement with a bottle of bourbon.

LYRICS:
"Darling"
by Jake Kilroy and Grant Brooks

It was the week I couldn't sleep.
You were out of town and the dog kept me company.
I slurred my words as I cooked with wine.
Sometimes, I can't stand this heart of mine.

Darling, I built a fire for you
with hands that do shadow puppets too
as well as hold candles, cup water, fix cars,
stir pasta, wash windows and point out shooting stars.

Let me whisk you away
to the same fields that you grew battled up on.
Let me build us a house
from the trees that cracked during your favorite lightning storm.
Let me burn those bridges
of friends that forget your birthday every single year.
Let me mouth off to the men
who said you'd look good as someone else.

From the steeple I built in my room,
I prayed to myself for the answers to unasked questions.
I wrote about my hands shaking before,
and I wrote about my heart breaking as a kid.

But my eyes have grown weary of the lines in the road.
I'm having such a hard time finding way my home,
not that I ever had an idea of where that was.
I never raked the same yard twice.

I kissed girls on nights I should've stayed in,
and I shared glass bottles with friends
that were out looking for the same sea-lost ship.

I spent those early days like a heavyweight
spends the hours leading up to a fight,
sleepless and wistful.

Give me the wood pirates. Give me the flower boats.
Give me the Holy Grail, filled with the blood of youth.
Smear it across my mouth like a clown grin.
Put me in a tux and tell me where the party is.

Let me whisk you away
to the same fields that you grew battled up on.
Let me build us a house
from the trees that cracked during your favorite lightning storm.
Let me burn those bridges
of friends that forget your birthday every single year.
Let me mouth off to the men
who said you'd look good as someone else.

Darling

Read "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury. Got drunk with my dog. Recorded this song.

LYRICS:
"Autumn Magician"
by Jake Kilroy

Hey, autumn magician, when will the spooky winds come?
I've got questions for pagan gods
about youth, nostalgia and love,
and I'll ask them without
jokes, poetry, sarcasm, threats or irony.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Memories are like old movies,
playing on a rusty projector
until it's just you, cold and asleep,
in the empty theater.

Think of carnivals and tattoos,
and wonder which better represents you.
You can't have both, which you probably know,
sustaining some laughter and growth.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Surely, you've tasted the salt of summer skin,
just to spit it up after too much rum
that went straight to your new autumn head
as you were finding balance in a winter bed.

Which rituals do you think involve broken hearts and lovers' blood?
What spells do we try to make ourselves in basements and backyards?

Autumn Magician

This song is nonsense / a tremendously botched attempt at "La Bamba" written when I had an actual fever.

LYRICS:
"Olly Olly Oxen Free"
by Jake Kilroy

Roll out the red carpet tongue to lick wounds,
filled to the salt-encrusted brims with doom.
I've got a mouth of hot teeth laced with swears,
a throat graffitied with words like a junkie prayer.

But, you, you were gorgeous,
whistling dixie on the porch of America,
and me with my fever,
it just wasn't enough to remember you.

No more barley wine or royal bloodlines.
She told me that I had a smile like a jack knife.
I said, "Your black dress keeps me honest."
She said, "You act like you could keep a promise."

Hey, you.

Debutantes in mini skirts
that want to take a thrashing and give a beating,
they put their lips together and they whisper,
"Every charming man's renaissance is fleeting."

I'll never forget when I dressed well
and posed as a pioneer out on the rails.
When spring came, I pulled out my heart
and drank its insides so I wouldn't starve.

Hey, you.

Are we really looking for Christ at night
or do we just want a drinking partner that'll tip right?
Sing me a tune, precious atrium rib cage,
because we can't sleep and we won't change.

Hey, you.

Olly Olly Oxen Free

I can't really sing or play guitar, but music's too much fun to not at least goof off from time to time.

Jake Kilroy

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