Rust by Justin Bailey

"Why An Artist Should Never Comment On His Own Work," or, "Postmodernism for Dummies: An Exposé On Artistic (?) Excess," or, (Charitably), "A Self-Aware Critique of Self-Awareness," or (my favorite) "Jib Jab," or, if you really just want to cut to the chase here, "A Stream of Consciousness Guide to the Album Rust and the Themes Contained Therein, or Whatever Bullshit You Can Come Up With After a Couple Whiskies or Just A Good Microbrew or Even One of Those Shitty Swilly Beers that Taste Like Camel Piss But Are Easy To Consume in Quantities Sufficiently Vast to Make You Forget That Ugly Mug You Examine Every Morning For Signs Of Improvement – Forget It, That Is, For Just Long Enough to Either Discover The Origin Of That Old Saying About Blind Squirrels And Finding A Nut or To Just Really Make An Ass of Yourself And Ensure That For The Rest of Your Life, When You Wake Up Several Hours After Dawn With That Noxious Taste of Lingering Alcohol That Seems to Have Merged with the Actual Flesh of Your Mouth, You Feel A Vague Sense of Uneasy Shame."

1. Rust – (sad bastard music, acoustic folk pop rock, major chord sweet spot harmonies) Inertia → External Shock → Flight → Discovery of Strength → Convalescence. Corrosive or injurious influence of effect: the substance of the first two verses. The sloughing off of rest. When I first moved to Seattle, I left my bikes outside for a few days, and, being in Seattle, they quickly accumulated a crusty layer of hydrated ferric oxide. A castoff t-shirt, some white lightning degreaser, and some intense spinning and caressing took care of it in short order. The chain once again spun the wheels with flawless fluidity, but it did acquire a new reddish brown color. The color of the earth. The rich, coarse feeling of rust fragments between finger and thumb. The finding of strength and connection to greater world through introspection and journey. On a personal and pretentious (but no more so than this exercise in general) level, this song is about the competing influences of Thomas Wolfe and Cormac McCarthy on myself. From McCarthy’s The Crossing: “He said that the wolf is a being of great order and he knows what men do not: that there is no order in the world save that which death has put there.” Wolfe’s “a stone, a leaf, a door,” his “great city of visions,” the balanced worldview that focused on the ubiquitous magic and beauty lighting the grimy cities and fearful, tormented ghosts of men. Man’s ability to self-destruct perhaps only equaled by his ability to create.
2. Let’s Run Tonight – (80s SMASH! Pop jam!) Booming toms, and a motherfucking banjo. Do you think if I compare this song to Taylor Swift, and plaster the name, “Taylor Swift,” all over this and my website and the bandcamp account, I can lure her legion of fans to my CD, or perhaps just summon her for a mild interaction over the coffee carafes at Fido? New York City. Amtrak. The smearing gray half light shifting past as train pounds forward. The shock of swirling bodies. Jilted lover. Voyeuristic pleasure in gut-wrenching imagining – sex, closeness, the faceless “he”? Merging bodies and bursting champagne corks. Coalescence. Triumphant renewal and deliverance from ennui. Escape, and the rediscovery of energy. Remembering that the young never die, that the young are the sparks and breaths that light the world. Taylor Swift.
3. Coffee and Blues – (Sad bastard music, alt country or folk or something). And booze. Ennui. A slower song. My favorite part of the album: the false stop after the second chorus, followed by the hopeful banjo reentrance. Oak trees with worn out knees. Ghosts and whiskey dreams and birds and waiting. Return to inertia or attained strength?
4. Maze (Always For You) – (Pop jam!) The song formerly known as The Straight Lines of the Maze. This is the straightforward love song. This is meant to be the counterpoint to songs 1 and 3. The arena song. I’ll try not to cheapen the sentimentality with too much hedging and questionably ironic self-deprecation.
5. Weather Vane – (Upbeat Alt-folk rock Americana) Uh oh! The motherfucking F Bomb! Wanted to put this song first because I feel it presents a titillating picture of myself as an interesting man who has spent time in titty bars that taste like cigarettes and seen mad kings salivating and howling and now am just generally over it all. Freedom and the road was great and all, the song says, but it’s like one of those dubious lovers that look all right at the time but soon after that dirty deed is done with said lovers of questionable quality, you just feel a little uneasy and ashamed. But, the F bomb in the first phrase seemed like I’d be trying a little too hard. In all seriousness, it’s about the chaos of the world and the attempt to immerse and understand. The bewildering lack of coherence.
6. Episode 15: Circe – (Mid-tempo Alt folk rock) This song is about a prostitute. Money as power as weapon as sex. Nipples like Georgia. “I write your life in lines” – whose life? Hers or mine?
7. Light and Dark – (Alt folk rock country Nashville mid-tempo positive) This is about the green light at the end of the pier. The attempt to live well, and what it means to live well. The search for truth, and the role of perspective in truth. Truth versus my truth versus our truth. The attempt to overcome our own worst impulses and to create light and return home. Recognition of imperfection and darkness. My one and only guitar solo on the album.
8. Goodnight My Dear – (Bluegrass folk rock pop semi-sad bastard music) The mothereffing bluegrass jam! Blaming former significant other → moving on toward a forward-focused life philosophy and accepting the past → recognition of own misdeeds → back to gloriously freeing life philosophy → ultimate recognition that the past’s hold is strong and continues to haunt.
9. My Soul Says No – (sad bastard music acoustic singer-songwriter) Can the past be forgotten? Are pain and ecstasy inseparable bed fellows? Can a voice be left behind?
10. The Tourniquet Years – (solo acoustic folk) Papa Joe (RIP). The building up of blood and the flexing of veins and numbing tingling and the easement of pain. Finding meaning in a world without. Searching in the dark corners of consciousness and striving to interpret. Accepting the fickle whims of life and acknowledging one’s ability to assert a place through action. Rolling through the world like thunder. Growing up.

Justin was born and raised in Nashville, TN, where he unsuccessfully attempted to master the guitar, thwarted, he would say, by the rare elegance of his fingers and his preference for writing sad bastard lyrics. He currently resides in Nashville, TN, where he is hoping to form a band.

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