Preorders for New Love Stories open tomorrow. It’s a Bandcamp Friday, when the site doesn’t take its cut of sales.
The album will be available in three formats: A vinyl LP. A silk-screened poster. A CD. All formats will include a lossless digital download of the album.
Also tomorrow, the first single from the record will be streaming on Bandcamp. It’s called “The House on Laurel Street.” It’s a song I’ve been trying to get right since 1996.
I spent the whole of the 1990s in love with one person. We met in college, and our relationship began as a lark. I tapped her on the shoulder in French class one afternoon and asked, “Would you like to go home and make out with me?” She said yes. I was 20. I’d never done anything quite like that before. I don’t know what had gotten into me.
Of course, that kind of connection isn’t built to last. She left for another guy in the space of a few months, and I was blindsided with a sudden awareness of being completely in love with her. I could see other people or not. I could try to self-talk my way out of it or not. But nothing I did made any difference. I’d see her around town from time to time, and the feeling would always be there, completely undiminished. I had it bad!
I have to say that I still love her, if I’m being real with myself. And why wouldn’t I? The idea that there’s a thin line between love and hate makes for a catchy lyric, but it’s nonsense. There’s a thin line between hate and a much lesser thing we sometimes mistake for love. But between love and hate? There’s an infinite expanse between those. Wherever she is these days, my spirit still says yes to her spirit, and I’m a better person for it.
So this isn’t exactly a “new” love story. But I’ve finally (with the help of the Humans) made something I like out of it, and so I guess that’s new to me.
Tomorrow I’ll share the evolution of the song that came from that story, and the finished version of it — “The House on Laurel Street.”
I sort of wish I could still live in Oregon Hill. Not, like, 1990s Oregon Hill. Yikes. But the Oregon Hill of the soul. Or something deep like that.
what seems new to me is how you can capture your experiences and turn them into greater and accessible experiences for others. Like a Polaroid artist. Thanks for writing these songs, and I can't wait for the album!