hey you,
Happy Friday! I hope all is well in your part of the universe.
Here’s a new song for you. It’s called Modern American History.
I hope it makes your day at least 1% better.
This is the new track from my never-going-to-be-released 3rd album 😉
It sounds like a fuzzy, synthy dad-rock song accidentally hit #1 on the Billboard Top 40, dethroning Taylor Swift and ending her career forever.
But it really feels like a spiritual successor to the dumb songs we all know and love like REM’s It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) (if you’re a Gen Xer) or Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire (if you’re a Boomer).
This is my Magnum Opus of laughing at society. While also fully acknowledging how dumb I am.
The song speaks for itself so stop reading now and go listen.
But… here’s the back story if you’re into that:
This song landed in my Moleskin™ notebook in a record 20 minutes flat.
There I was. Cruising in my signature twenty year old free gold scalp-top Mercury Grand Marquis granny-car (this car, but rustier with the felt-top torn off).
Floating through the empty 2020 post-apocalyptic streets of Austin, I hate-listened to NPR news. I could feel the radio deep-frying my brain in fresh COVID body-counts and ritualistic reports of “the worst blah blah blah in modern American history”.
And there it was. That phrase. I’d heard if for years but never really noticed it before that moment. “Modern American History”. After that I heard it everywhere, in every news story.
It is marketing gold. It is brain-washing gold. It is obey-whatever-your-master-says gold.
I floated on home in my boat and the song was instantly written, recorded and rough mix done within a couple hours that morning.
The song put a nice exclamation point at the end of what was the most insane part of my life. It was written a year and half after I got myself banned from the Austin music scene and in the midst of EVERY artist getting banned from EVERY music scene via the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was recorded in my little 12 by 12 bedroom studio in Austin, TX in 2020 and finally mixed at my current converted-garage studio in Athens, TX six years later.
Bless your patient little heart. Better late than never, I guess.
Also, fun fact: the cover art for this song is a random drawing that Emily and I did on a date night in Athens in 2024-ish.
I say WE drew it because WE really did draw it out with two ballpoint pens on notebook paper together at a restaurant.
The game went like this:
- Get two sheets of paper and set a timer for 3 minutes and start drawing.
- After 3 minutes, BEEP, and we switch papers and keep drawing on top of the other person’s drawing.
- Then swap back and forth for a few rounds until the waitress brings out the food.
And voila! Totally insane drawing.
I took that sketch and transformed it into a pseudo screenprint vibe I like to do with gig posters. But it’s straight out of me and my wife’s collective subconscious.
The twin of this drawing will appear as the cover for the next song “Archibald the Chicken”. So keep an eye out for that equally crazy thing.
Sidenote: I’m not that vain. Well, maybe I am. But I never draw my own face. Quit judging me bro. It’s always Emily doing it. It appears on the last few covers too on a Banana and a Cup of Noodles. But my dumb face is really starting to remind me of the infamous and annoying meme guy face. It’s uncanny.
Anyways, enjoy Modern American History.
Peace out,
Ty
P.S. What’s new with you? What do you think about Modern American History? Are you even alive out there?
Listen to the single “Modern American History” below and everywhere else you listen to music:
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