Brendan Lynch : Track By Track

Get Over Yourself: I had a sweaty nightmare that I was in love with one of America's favorite ingenues. After splashing my face with water and Listerine, I sat down and wrote this love song to myself.

Ride: We had just finished "Stop Your Crying" and things were getting a little heavy so this was an opportunity for Glen and I to do something that didn't take itself so seriously. Sex was the perfect vehicle - like playing drums, in some way, every human being on earth has participated in that action. I will admit, however, that "Ride" recounts a particular encounter that might not be all that common.

Stop Your Crying: The 'calling card' of Lynch's debut album. In America, there's always a way to get what you want. It is unfortunate that human nature is so quick to turn gift and opportunity into manifest destiny. It is at that point that you hear people blame their own fundamental shortcomings on whatever they believe will get them off the hook. The song basically asks people to take responsibility for themselves. It's not a very popular notion anymore.

Wonderful: "Wonderful" is a little bit like "Stop Your Crying" only from a first person perspective. Here's a guy bagging on the rock star for being strung out when he himself is throwing down methadone and whatever else he can get his hands on. The key in the song is finding some simple compassion for a common condition - "How the hell does a radio star know exactly where I'm at?"

Fighting Gravity: "Fighting Gravity" is basically the story of a guy who loses his job and throws himself out of a window. He sees himself as a superhero and a winner, as do most of us. It takes place in about two minutes. Everybody for that one moment is watching the thing in awe. The guy hits the ground and there's that uncomfortable pause...and then it's business as usual. It's a bit morbid, but it's more about his selfish moment. If nothing else, he had that.

Anybody Out There: That song was written for a movie about a disenfranchised American worker, but by the time we had finished it became uncomfortably autobiographical. The song went through three different facelifts and ended up sounding more like "Space Oddity" or "Rocket Man" than "Take This Job and Shove It."

Sugathrilla: That was an opportunity to tap into the spoon-fed, caffeine-pumped generation that I find myself a part of I kept in mind the Jeff Goldblum line from Jurassic Park---"we were so busy thinking about whether or not we could, that no one bothered to consider whether or not we should." It still gets me off.

Volume: What a trip! That was one of those sessions that we just followed each other's instincts-for better or worse. The song ends up being a whiskey-soaked 1920's private-eye novel somewhere between the back of a '76 Chevy Nova and a Sunset Strip hotel.

Real Enough: This song came at the least likely of times. We were both in the mood to put together something uptempo and full of attitude. We ended up with the Sonora Desert, a blood sucking goat-bat, a mother's vigilant eye, and a blue agave state of mind. Sometimes your head goes on vacation without you.

Embryo: "Embryo" is the best way to describe where everything on this record comes from. The Iyrics outline my impression of the American post-adolescent position.

Brave New Planet: I tired at an early age of listening to people preach on rock n' roll records. I've always felt that there are ways to talk about ourselves without burning down the dance hall. I was trying the whole way through the record not to be 'that guy.' "Brave Planet" was just one last shot at convincing myself that the shit ain't really all that bad.

Yak back to Webmistress Spidra Webster

Last modified on 9/21/97

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