If You've Ever Loved Someone with Mental Illness
I hope that this update finds everybody healthy and safe amidst the worldwide health crisis that we are now in the midst of. I will have to admit that the adjustment to life in quarantine has been a bit of a challenge to me, mainly because I don’t live alone. I think on my own I could deal with isolation better than I can with constant company. But... we do what we must and what we can, and life goes on for the lucky.
For me, the upshot of quarantine has been the lack of commute time that I can now use to catch up administrative aspects of my music work. I bought myself an iPad Pro just before everything in New Jersey closed down, mainly for my teaching work (I needed something new that could be used for Zoom conferencing with tutoring students), but I find the acquisition a godsend where the office work associated with my music is concerned at well.
Meanwhile, my band mates and I have been busy in our respective studios churning out parts (or in my case, mixing and mastering) to stave off the madness of tedium that ensues from untold hours on the same spot of land. To wit, here is the first song we managed to bring to fruition from the JABBERWALRUS BRINGS THE SILENCE project we began writing in 2014.
“Does She Know She’s Not Right in the Head” is a dark but uptempo piece of baroque piano-and-guitar power pop a la the Beatles circa Rubber Soul or Revolver. Clocking in at 3:01, it may be the shortest song we’ve recorded since the individual songs that make up the Jaffa Suite, a trilogy off our BLEACHED BONES OF TITANS album that clocks in at a total of under eight minutes.
I believe that it is the first track we are releasing featuring the bass work of Kurt Hendricksen (whose day gig as a musician is as part of Stella Mrowicki’s backing band). Don’t worry: Julian Michalski is still as important to our music as ever! But we were spreading him very thin, so after our wonderful experience playing live with Kurt at Brighton Bar in January, we decided to give him all the JABBERWALRUS songs that didn’t already have bass recorded on them (which, in those cases, were actually Tom Briant’s work!).
And of course, we’ve got the usual suspects bringing their amazing chops to the song as always: Tom Briant on guitars, Adam Silverstein on piano, and Paul Galiszewski on drums.
With any luck, I’ll have a few more songs mixed and mastered by the end of the week and ready for release in late April and then a few more in May and June. I’ve also got a remix coming out soon for “Politics of Pleasure,” from my 80s-new-wave-inspired side project The General Electorate.
That’s it. I hope you like this song. I hope you LOVE this song. I hope you play it over and over on multiple formats and share the links with all of your friends and loved ones and bored, quarantined coworkers looking for diversion. Every spin will earn me a fraction of a penny, so if each person on this list listens and then manages to get two dozen other people to listen, I’ll have made as much money off this song as I normally would make in one hour of teaching.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay sane. Maybe this song will help. :0)
I've made a fantastic playlist to
The Random Hubiak Band: Does She Know She's Not Right in the Head
Beatles: Eleanor Rigby Rolling Stones: In Another Land Harry Nilsson: Sister Marie ’Til Tuesday: Will She Just Fall Down Elliott Smith: Baby Britain Cold Weather Company: Head Spins XTC: Love on a Farm Boy’s Wages Robyn Hitchcock: Mad Shelley’s Letterbox Robert Palmer: Looking for Clues Kate Bush: How to Be Invisible Low Millions: Eleanor Marshall Crenshaw: Cynical Girl Rockfour: Two Miles Billy Joel: Surprises Dar Williams: Are You out There Chris Rovik: Burning Bridges Matt Cook: Erasers Namoli Brennet: Cut My Tongue Badfinger: Dear Angie Squeeze: Take Me I’m Yours Michael Penn: Long Way Down The Move: Blackberry Way John Kyle: Soon July: Hallo To Me Syd Barrett: She Took A Long Cold Look The Smithereens: In A Lonely Place The Knack: Normal as the Next Guy Natalie Merchant: Wonder Robyn Hitchcock: The Rain The Pretty Things: L.S.D. Elton John: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds Father John Misty: True Affection Suzanne Vega: In Liverpool Yael Naim: She The Junipers: Mortimer The Moody Blues: Lost in a Lost World Guided By Voices: Sons of Apollo XTC: The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead Elvis Costello: Oliver’s Army The Moody Blues: The Voice Jessicas Towler: Anxiety David Bowie: Uncle Arthur Elliott Smith: Son of Sam Harry Nilsson: She Sang Hymns out of Tune Jet: Eleanor Elvis Costello: Veronica
LYRICS:
Sometimes I catch her staring quietly,
But then she sees me and turns it back on. And all the words come random, blindly,
Like she was there but now she’s gone. It seems so manic. Did she just panic?
Was she cogent but the words took wrong shape. Is she so broken that when her mouth opens
All the demons fly out to escape? Does she know she’s not right in the head? I’d like to hold her and say I love her,
And I could even make it true, To be her savior, balm, or mother,
But there’s just so much I can do. The accusations fly. She doesn’t even try.
It’s just something she does. Move too soon and each open wound
Unearths a hatchet that bears a blunt grudge. Does she know she’s not right in the head? How many times can I overlook the cruelty that she asserts? I often wonder who the target truly is for all of the hurt. Is it invention or sans intention? When did she give up the control? If I could heal her would she be real or what would be the cost to her soul? Does she know she’s not right in the head?