SUNSET CHASER: i won’t be here when you call me. you might go crazy thinking i have gone. you might smash open something symbolizing just what you don’t want to think about. think to yourself, maybe she has a new lover. she caved right into a big empty hole. swallowed up a passerby, a brighter whiter salesman smile, a palm shot out to seal the deal, a greasy hand a squeaky wheel. trade you places, i will be the one away. west for miles, sunset chaser. work yourself up into a firey anger, burn a hole into the chesterfield. until finally you peter out, intoxicated hater of the very thought of losing what you never even cared about. always liked a sunset. always takes the spotlight away from what i must look like to you. - keri mctighe

LOCK YOUR DEVILS UP: lock your devils up, the sky is brewing thick and static, hairs on end. rocking chairs fall off their porches, clutch their sides and gasp for air. throw keys away, the shutters shake like grannies turned a bright teenage with heads thrown back and parted lips, the wildest things on their tongue tips. lock your devils up and bind your longings in barbed wire electric fence. swinging arms and stuttered steps mix yellow dust with fevered sweat, and eyes rolled back, and to the west, the blackest clouds the biggest mess. and rather than an april shower falling soft to cool our skin, send us lightning and tornadoes, sweep us up, sweep us up and start again. - keri mctighe

BAD IDEAS: i’m going down the highway with a suitcase full of all my bad ideas, going to check them out, see what i have been missing all these years. are they things i can imagine my way through until the end? where i feel devastated for the things i put you through, my sweet vivian. hate to take your heart and break it, so i’m turning myself in. a lot of bad ideas think i’m the one for them. hate to make you think that i’ve got anything that you might need, except a lot of bad ideas for you and me. i’m going down the highway knowing i am giving up the closest thing to what i have barely let myself believe i’m worthy of. - keri mctighe

EMELINA: emelina, you’re the talk of the town. i hear you burned the whole damn kitchen to the ground. a lovely dinner’s gone to hell and there’s no doubt the words spilled out, you’ve got the worst reputation around. you’d better keep an open eye for that old blue howling ghost you left behind. carry on, carry on, it’s half an hour past your hanging time. so whenever you decide to come around, you’ll raise a storm that shakes the worms out of the ground. and the curse of the whiskey ain’t the worst of your history, the jury’s out the hammer’s coming down. emelina, you’re the talk of the town. i hear you burned the whole damn kitchen to the ground but there’s more dignity to that, than trying to earn our graces back, you’ve got the curse of the bottle and the worst reputation around. - shelley marshall

I LEFT MY STATION: i regret everything i did. i regret every fib i slid through, sugar sweet to make it go down. through the hallways of grey and tan, flash of red inappropriately emitting signals clearly out of bounds. i left my station. such a dare such a rigid line, sucked me in with a devil’s mind and order slipped out ever so quietly. evidence run for the hills, or rolling will both of our heads go. people like to watch it spill. i regret everything i’ve said. every whisper explodes in my head. - keri mctighe

ONE SPEND: i’m one spend ahead of you. i’ve got state of the art adjustable parts with an extended warranty, some peace of mind for an extra fee. i’ve got gadgets that mold the things that are old into sleek facsimiles of what was once guaranteed to please, but feels the interest begin to cease. it’s not always a blue sky and when the lightning strikes i’ll go out with a smash, but i aint falling by no waysides or caterwauling of lonely nights. if you’ve got the remedy, i’ve got the cash. i’ve got new and improved you could be like this too, don’t hesitate because the longer you wait, the steeper the climb from the end of line back to here. don’t settle for less you deserve all the best, stay with the times or you’ll be left behind waving your arms while the pit of your heart fills with fear. - keri mctighe

JIMSON WEED: hold me down, hold me down, someone better hold me down. can’t say what i’m bound to do if you don’t. counted to ten, i grit my teeth, bite my tongue but i am leaking, and i don’t know how much longer i can go. details as sharp as nails, poking through my skin like jimson weed bursting through the astro-turf-plastic-coating, keeping the beast in me properly concealed and maintenance free. (but now its out) quarantine or ticker tape parade? neither one will be pretty dear so cover up your eyes, there are wicked wicked truths and we are happier in our delightful lies. but now its out. - keri mctighe

RED RIVER CLAY: he waits my love, he waits my love, down in the tall pine bay. and by his side a stone inscribed, and it’s as cold as the red river clay. i knit ten miles of black wool, finally broke that dreadful spell. beneath the trees, the grass and the weeds, can you hear that steeple bell? you stay too long, you’ll sink right in, it opens up like a trap door grinning into every empty space along the way. i’ve got better things to do than work my wheels into a spin and lay down in that cold red river clay. i’ve  got a bouquet full of weeds i pulled that cling to me like this old black wool. i place them by my lover’s side where my name stares back at me. these dandelions and daffodils still have all these holes to fill, but i won’t shuffle cards until i’m grey. - shelley marshall

GASOLINE: hands glued to the steering wheel, smack between a ledge straight down and a wall of spruce as thick as thieves. and as sure as a sharp corner comes a jack-knife kind of creepiness, sweeps up and over me. oh gasoline don’t leak out on me, two thousand miles left to go a brand new name, haircut, hell make me a blond if it’ll blend me in. “lovely weather for an april day, i just came through saskatchewan from as south as you can drive before you drop.” said he just planned on passing through, but that he didn’t know he’d crash into tarnation pouring coffee in a lonely old truckstop. down it goes from there on in, i’m a sucker for attention when it revs up to me wheeling like a screech. but by degrees his grip got tight, suspicion turned his knuckles white, had to drive them in my face to find relief. where i found the muster is a mystery best left in apartments found deserted and a semi-trailer theft. where you ended i’ll pick up, onwards to tuktoyaktuk, about as north as you can go before you drop. - keri mctighe

HOME WITH ME: if i could be your one and only, i’d bend the rules, i would take the rap. so strap me on the ultra-violet lie-detectorized rack-o-matic. i’ll say whatever it will take to bring you home with me. a folder in my room holds clippings of the news, particularly paragraphs all dedicated to the dragging of us through speculationalized stacks of data. they’ll say whatever gets our fists up, sets our blood to boiling over, every maybe if and what about a bit of give a shred of doubt? the possibility that you’re exactly who you say you are. i bet you have the kind of eyes crinkled up at the edges a secret map. trails etched in skin, situations you’ve been in (though it’s never got quite this dramatic). bandwagon landslide down a pile growing higher and the worst thing is the first thing we believe. so go ahead and toss me into the southdale omni-correctional looney-bin. i’ll say whatever it will take to bring you home with me. - keri mctighe

STONE: i threw a stone in the river for you. i saw the water turn black. i saw the moon reflected for a moment, could have sworn i saw her grinning back. i threw a stone in the river for you. i saw the water turn black. then the moon laughed so hard at me for wanting that stone back. now it’s gone, gone, the milk has spilled the oven was left on, on, and everything i dreaded has come true, may it rest down at the bottom there with you. there’s a sparkle in me wanting some catastrophe to drop whatever it is doing and come rushing. take this stifled, loveless thing you call a living, smash it up and swirl it all away. see you when the leaves turn a bright bleeding red, when the snowdrifts trap me up inside. when the rain pisses on something nice that i had planned, i will see you then. - keri mctighe

DISCARDED DEBRIS: there’s an undertoe sucking desire that’s ignoring my vulnerable state, sees my floundering judgement and disobeys. takes my direct order and throws it off the deep end, then it howls as i thrash away. must have strayed while i was asleep, my nervous heart, creeps back with stowaway secrets. into my dreams they leak and they’re burning my cheeks. stop your feet from kicking, let the bottom feeders weep. float to shore with the rest of us discarded debris.  such a blissful glitch in the seriousness, distribution of lifeboats according to lists. you know who gets a yacht, you know who gets a broken board, and as much as they’d like to they simply can’t take us all. - keri mctighe

BIG GALOOT: don’t go far for very long, ya big galoot. the air is thick with a terrible want, a glossy lip licked with a slippery guarantee. collecting it’s pay, and nevermind what gets into its way. it whispers right in to the emptiest spaces under your skin. come straight home when you get done, ya big galoot. a weekly wage in a pocket so steep will slip away listing all the things it can’t reach: a diamond ring, a holiday where sweet goldenthroats sing, a car that don’t break, and you chalk the reasons why we stay with you up to a sad mistake. all i want is a bed, is a bed to lay down in beside a body i know like i know my own self. and your goldenthroat doesn’t hold a candle to our lonely old barn owl, so take your diamond rings and throw them down the well. all i want is the red, is the red of your skin pressed into the blush of my own when i’m flush against you. so take your holiday dream cars and let ‘em sink to the bottom of some slough, and get yourself back home to me ya big galoot. - keri mctighe

keri mctighe - vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, theremin
shelley marshall - vocals, electric guitar, accordion, 6 string banjo
devin latimer - bass, vocals
daniel roy - drums, percussion
burke carroll - pedal steel, dobro
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special guests
joanna miller played drums on ‘home with me’
jay churko played electric guitar on ‘gasoline’
john switzer played a rubber bass solo on ‘big galoot’ and sang on ‘one spend’
john adames played percussion on ‘big galoot’
rusty matyas played trumpet on ‘one spend’
lloyd peterson played organ on ’home with me,’ and sang on ‘one spend’
the brothers cosmoline played on ‘lock your devils up waltz’: dan kershaw sang, john switzer played the 6 string banjo, burke carroll played dobro, steve briggs played mandolin and john adames played some sweet snare drum
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produced by john switzer
all songs written by k.mctighe except ‘emelina' and 'red river clay' written by s.marshall, ©2003 & ©2004 socan.
engineered by neil cameron and lloyd peterson
recorded at private ear studio in winnipeg, manitoba, canada
all songs mixed by david chalfant except ‘lock your devils up waltz’ mixed by john switzer
mastered by scott hull at hit factory, NYC
quilted artwork by nathan
quilt photos by darren stebeleski at neuhaus design
band photographs by pete soos
layout by keri mctighe
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nathan would like to sincerely thank all of our friends and families who without their love and support this project would be pointless. we would especially like to thank john switzer for his efficacious ears. mark jowett for his dreamings. blair purda from endearing records for his acumen. the brothers cosmoline for showing us how it’s done. jason, rob and liv at smallman management. everyone at nettwerk records. mike marshall. sam, susan, sarah, and rachel at maria. kevin, carol, monique, dani and pam at mfsd. jack schuller at festival distribution. all the ‘nathans’ volunteering at the west end cultural centre. ckuw and umfm campus/community radio. the d.rangers catering co. and of course john, leslie and alice at the times change(d) high and lonesome club.
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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Sound Recording Development Program for this project.