Lyric Sheet

Track List:

1. Jake's -1 Birthday Party: A song to grant Jake Berendes immortality, born of the observation that if I ever again sang Jake's Birthday Party all the way through, it would cause Jake to age another 19 years. This song should be sung but once a year, to ensure that Jake stays young and fresh.

2. The Ballad of Michigan J: This song is so bad, it has its own Web page. (Yes, that is the measure of badness.) A cartoon shill saves the world from alien invasion. This song requires three people and I perform it all by myself. Some verses, and the source of the music (an ELO song) provided by Kris.

3. My Dyslexic Anorexic from Texas: A total slam on a nonexistant person. You want it to be about Dubya, but it's not. How could it be?

4. Super Decaffeinated Sodomy Lite: Sorry.

5. Gods and Numbers: A beautiful love song in which I wish numbers had a more positive role.

6. Jake's Betrayal: Disturbing (in a good way) sequel to Jake's Birthday Party. The last verse gives me chills. Seriously.

7. Mud: Song about being unable to write twisted and sad songs because there's someone in your life who makes you happy. Song about realizing that no number of twisted and sad songs will change the world, and being okay with it. No relation to the Primus song My Name is Mud.

8. Die With My Imaginary Boots On: I'm not a cowboy. Neither are you (probably).

9. I Sing Because I Live With Satan (ass biting evil in a white sauce): Marching band-esque deconstruction of Jake's Led Zeppelin cover.

10. Born To Rock And Roll: The phone rings as I start this and I don't get very far. Just as well, since I never finished writing it.

11. Peanut Butter And KY Jelly: The musical equivalent of the Kinsey report. Also the oldest song on this tape (1997, slightly older than Die With My Imaginary Boots On).

12. My Complaint About Jacob P. Berendes: I hate that tall fucker.

13. A Harvest of Death: Ever have one of those days where you find it neccessary, or even desirable, to reap a harvest of death?

14. Alien Nature Documentary: A crazy person is convinced that aliens are making a documentary about him, and that his everyday activities are being narrated over in an unknown language by the alien equivalent of Richard Attenborough. That person is me.

15. When The X Comes Marching In: Generalization of the old spiritual.

16. Holiday Show: You think it will turn into a PETA anti-meat tirade, but somehow it never does. Probably because, rather than anthropomorphize things which are alive and which get killed during the song, it anthropomorphizes things which are already dead, in the manner of a kid playing with his food.

17. I Sing Because Satan Is My Roommate: Taking I Sing Because I Live With Satan to its logical conclusion. This is an eight-minute guitar solo which actually sounds good in places. I don't know why I am obsessed with this song. I don't even particularily like it.

18. 100 Amazing Facts About Jake Berendes: Just what it sounds like.

19. The X on the Bus: Generalization of the children's song.

20. Theme And Variation on Your Proximity to the Ribeyes of Texas: the ultimate compendium of "Ribeyes of Texas" songs. Contains my original song, and Jim Dunn's new words to "Working on the Railroad".

21. Songs With Inappropriate Minimalistic Accompaniments, Part 1: Love Potion #9 Someone will do this except they won't give it the right title. They'll call it Tree and perform it on a stage and it will be aahhht. And because I called it what it really is, I will be forgotten and relegated to a footnote. But that footnote will say "IT'S NOT TREE, DAMN YOU! THERE'S NO TREE IN THE WHOLE PIECE!" and maybe people will see it.

22. Letters From The Dead: A wonderful melancholy song about the lousy life of the guy who is the go-between between the dead and the living. Why does he put up with it? Because he has to.

23. Songs With Inappropriate Minimalistic Accompaniments, Part 2: Joy To The World The 60s rock song one, not the Christmas carol one.

24. 3 Stupid Mentos Song Parodies: Kris, Adam, and myself once entered into a blood pact to each write a parody of the Mentos song. I had it easy because I'd written one for my French class in high school. But in the end, the real winner was the American people.

25. A Moral Lesson About Moral Lessons: On Halloween, some churches hold a "Hell House" in which visitors are shown the gruesome punishments that await those who engage in abortions and/or homosexuality. Upon that concept this song wreaks a revenge as gory and reactionary as the activity it pretends to condemn, as though your opinions of such things could somehow be swayed by the sight of a "WWJD?" bracelet wrapped around a dismembered arm. The rhyme scheme is impeccable.

26. Jake's Answering Machine Message: Meant to be sung in one breath. I can't do it. Some people can. I don't want to hear from you if all you're going to tell me is that you can do it.

27. Ex Falso Quodlibet: An acoustic guitar solo which has a name that belongs to some other song. I don't know what name belongs to this song.

28. Waiting For The Sun: You'd think this song would be a metaphor for something, but nooooooo.

29. Rain of Rain (Disposable Napkin Rag): A song about the end of the world, which never happens when it should. The first verse of this song was in the card I sent to Jake on May 5, 2000, in celebration of the end of the world on that date. I was later distressed to find the "rain of rain" joke used in Terry Pratchett's Jingo. I should do a song called Disposable Napkin Rag, but this is not that song.

30. Susie's Mother's Tamales: Belated love song to the girl I had a crush on in high school (Susie, not her mother). The sort of song you can only write once the crush has run its course. I don't know how she'd feel about this song. I also have only a vague idea of what goes into tamales, which is probably just as well. The equivalent of Jake's Five Alive.

31. Jake Berendes West Covina (I cannot play the fucking guitar): The song that inspired the epic. This song came to me in a dream. The first verse, anyway. After that I had to scour the map of the LA area. I've been playing the guitar for five years and I can't even stay on tempo. Why?

32. I cannot fuck the playing guitar: The complete contents of Readers Digest tape which tries to get you to enter some damn contest and which after four years I can throw away since I've used it.