bORN AGAIN BLUES

in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

excerpt from "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg

original introduction
november 13, 2012

Dear Listener,

I co-wrote all of the songs on Born Again Blues with Joseph Ripple, with the exception of "Milestone" (that one was by Brandon Mitchell). I performed all of the songs on the album - that’s my voice, as well as my guitar. Joe plays lead guitar, banjo, and reed organ. Peter Levine plays the cello. Chris Fazio plays the fiddle. Alex Riedel plays the pedal steel. Joe, Chris, and myself all took turns playing the piano.

I engineered most of the album myself, with some additional help from the other musicians while recording their instruments. We recorded onto cassette tapes using a Tascam Portastudio 424, and a very special thank-you is due to David Pokrivnak for providing the console, as well as for first suggesting that it would greatly suit the kind of music that we were making (it does). Joe and I mixed everything ourselves.

The photograph on the album cover was taken by Shannon Powers, and is used with her permission. I added the effects and I designed the layout.

Lastly, I must assume responsibility for the album's overall conceptual arrangement. I wanted to create something that would be an all-encompassing listening experience, with songs that would fit together like puzzle pieces, coming and going like ghosts, bleeding and blending together. I hope that you enjoy it.

Extraneum inter extraneos,
Jeff

Dedicated to Mrs. Brittany A. Boyles, whether she hears it in this life or the next…

Lyrics

"Penn Avenue/Bloomfield Mornings"

Waking up next to you is the greatest feeling there is
When the pale sunlight throws itself through the curtains
Whitewashed out, blinded softly, the cotton in your eyes
The streets below, filled with love, a sketch scratched in the open sky

Hum, hum, hum, hum

Through a pinhole, you're a cocoon
Through the door, you're the waking moon
Drifting like the reeds in summertime, I try as I might
And I can see where we once stood still, so silent in ourselves

Hum, hum, hum, hum

Waking up next to you is the greatest feeling there is
But now we have to be adults

"The Rest of Our Lives"

For the longest time, I'd fall asleep
Pass through the light, the clouds clipped your wings
A thorn in your palm, the blood thick then gone
Fingers sunflower stained, your nails full of dirt with the past

I watched you soar, like a child on a swing
Without gravity, in the arms of the sun
Paths perfectly drawn, intertwined, soaked in life
I remember it like a dream, like it was a memory

"Lights on a String"

Orchards in bloom
Sun fades
Cocktails and suits
I'm just a shade

And you, so still, in the midst of it all
With friends, surrounded, like a shell
I'm just not that brave
A blue and white polka-dotted eye of a hurricane

Like a dog with his nose in the wind, I am lost
Like a stone on a pond, I just won't get across
Like a drink in my hand, I just wish I was strong
Like a light on a string, I just want to belong

The burgeoning din when the cicadas come
As sparklers crackle
And all the chatter, so perfectly loud
It's all swept under by my deafening heart

Like a salmon that envies the cod, I'm not right
Like a lemming that looks at the ledge, I just might
Like a web that gets spun and connects everything
We're all the same, like those lights on a string

"Foxtrot for Bare Feet"

I'm not tired, and I'm not dead
I took your hand, and you took mine
All your sighs, every breath
Crashing comes, like the tide

Eyes open, eyes closed
Eyes open, eyes closed
It's all the same

Though it's all in my head
All I wanted, you reinvent
To touch your skin, trace your lines
To hold you close and pass the time

Eyes open, eyes closed
Eyes open, eyes closed
You carried my heart to the foaming sea

"Madeleines"

[lyrics redacted]

And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

- excerpt from "Du côté de chez Swann" by Marcel Proust

"Bury Me in the Backyard"

I know that life is for the living
And I am not dismayed, but
I hope that you'll respect my wishes
When you send me on my way

Bury me in the backyard
With a stick to mark my bones
Bury me in the backyard, brother,
Of the house we once called home

With every labored wheeze that leaves my lungs
I don't fear, but know
And I don't aim to ever be a burden
So just see to this when I go

Bury me in the backyard
With a stick to mark my bones
Bury me in the backyard, brother,
Of the house we once called home

"The Myth of Saturday Night"

Fake light breaks across your face
The drunken dirge drones on
Streetsides full of empty souls
These were once our nights, but now they're gone

Parlor windows where tombstones stood
The echoes clink and ring amongst the crowded rooms
Fissures strew the concrete path
The unknown objects throughout a hurt holiday

But observations aren't the same
And every party has its gates
So it's true that everywhere you go
There you are, and me, well, I'm always alone

And none of these lights can illuminate me
And all these sounds dull my ears
And all these sights I'll never see again
And all this ground will lead me right back here

"No Heaven for the Likes of Me"

No heaven for kin of Cain
No, no heaven for they
No heaven for liars and thieves
No heaven for the likes of me

Lord giveth, and name be praised,
Lord taketh away
No heaven for those cast free
No heaven for the likes of me

So should Eden re-open gates
Lower her swords of flames
I'll be begging on bad knees
But no heaven for the likes of me

"Milestone"

You feel cold when you're alone
And I heard it on the phone
You don't have to explain it to me
I felt it when you kissed me

And it's no use, I can see your scars
What are you doing behind closed doors?
We're more alike than you think
You should see my skin
Please don't hang up the phone
Because this is just a milestone

And I won't force myself on you
I'm not like the other guys
I'm not afraid to look in your eyes
Take all the time you need
You don't have to satisfy me
That's not what I need

And it's no use, I can see your scars
What are you doing behind closed doors?
We're more alike than you think
You should see my skin
Please don't hang up the phone
Because this is just a milestone

I heard you fall and hit the floorboard
Don't you do this alone
So won't you break down beside me?
Oh, won't you break down beside me?

And please come back to the phone
Because this is just a milestone

And it seems that you have a choice to make
You could hang up right now and seal your fate
Or I could be there in less than five minutes
We could go for a ride

"I Used to Know Her"

Yes, I used to know your mother
I guess that we're still friends
Yes, I used to know your mother
Or, at least, she knew me

Yes, I still see that December
Whenever I close my eyes
Yes, I still see that December
And I still can't change a thing

Oh, but this was all ages ago
All the answers and the questions just don't matter
Oh, but this was all ages ago
Won't you please leave me alone?

Yes, I used to know your mother
I guess that we're still friends
Yes, I used to know your mother
Or, at least, she knew me

original press release
november 26, 2012

Born Again Blues is the passion project of pop veteran Jeff Betten and novelist Joseph Ripple. Stripped down to the regional sounds of day and night, the album is country music: homespun and handmade with unobstrusive hints of pedal steel guitar, banjo, reed organ, cello, fiddle, and piano. Betten is a voice without words, a ghost with a narrative that grows heavy. Written to envelop, each song is a shade darker than its former, recorded on one lingering track that manages to retain its emotional potency without overstaying its welcome. Betten and Ripple draw inspiration from the authenticity of Tom Waits and the lo-fi charm of Iron and Wine. Like Ginsberg’s "Howl", Born Again Blues is the strange, rambling man in the room: entertain him for a while and he’ll reward you with a sophisticated understanding of the human experience. Betten and Ripple offer a calculated, classically-assembled album that demands attention to its subtleties.

- Shannon Sankey