Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! Liner Notes

Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! Track List:

  1. Sunday Women

  2. Computer of Love

  3. Up All Night

  4. Another Lonely Day

  5. Don’t Overthink It

  6. Cartoon Music

  7. Feminine Walk

  8. Dada Bois

  9. Now You Know

  10. Not That Bad

  11. Got What I Wanted

Instruments & vocals by:

  • Aaron Lee Tasjan

  • Tommy Scifres

  • Dylan Sevey

  • Gregory Lattimer

  • Keith Christopher

  • Fred Eltringham

  • Josh Kaler

  • Devon Ashley

  • Dom Billet

  • Jon Radford

  • Matt Rowlands

All songs written by Aaron Lee Tasjan

Tasjan Music (ASCAP) administered by Words & Music, a division of Big Deal Music Group

Except

“Sunday Women” written by Aaron Lee Tasjan and Scot Sax

Tasjan Music (ASCAP) administered by Words & Music, a division of Big Deal Music Group / Scot Sax Songs (ASCAP)

“Up All Night” written by Aaron Lee Tasjan and Gregory W. Lattimer

Tasjan Music (ASCAP) administered by Words & Music, a division of Big Deal Music Group / Bill Town USA (ASCAP)

“Don’t Overthink It” written by Aaron Lee Tasjan and Patrick Damphier

Tasjan Music / Five Proud Trees (ASCAP) administered by Words & Music, a division of Big Deal Music Group

 A Foreword on Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! by Jaan Uhelszki

Every now and then an artist comes along who makes you remember why you started listening to albums in the first place: Aaron Lee Tasjan is that artist. With his wrecked cool, off-center charm, and restless creative dazzle, he makes music with conviction and arch mystique that has its roots in rock’s murky past, armed with an arsenal of songs that spill over with humor, intelligence, irony, personal vision and at times prophecy; pushing boundaries of taste and imagination to new heights, unrestrained by genre or subject matter. Songs that speak to the tribe.

An obsessive creative, Aaron Lee Tasjan writes pop songs with a twist, a little overdriven, far too honest at times—performing them like ragged rock tunes that careen a little too close to the edge without actually falling over into the abyss, and autobiographical to a fault. One listen to “Feminine Walk,” the musician’s blatantly confessional song on Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, you realize he is the legitimate heir to early rock ‘n’ roll's sly sexual sedition. He updates the idea of androgyny but dispels the emotional and social ambiguity with lyrics that reflect his own geographic and artistic wanderings. Beginning in his early teens they took him from Delaware to California, to Ohio, to New Jersey, to Massachusetts, to New York, to his current home in Nashville, always looking for his psychic and musical locus.

In both his travels and in making his fourth solo album, you get the sense over Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!’s 11 songs, that the man who began the album, is not the same man who completed it, transformed both by the experiences that inspired the songs and crafting them. In pursuing the muse, Tasjan found himself, and you can feel it beginning with the blithe, deceptive sunshine pop of “Sunday Women,” about an elusive dream girl, to “Computer of Love,” a slurry blurry cautionary about the demise of rock. “Up All Night” is part agit pop, part glam, an unexpected millennial anthem about modern romance without being precious, while “Another Lonely Day,” is a haunting Zen koan full of profundity and neurosis.

“Don’t Overthink It,” is a strutting, sputtering minor key threat, rhythmically so dangerous, the drumming sounds like knife flicks instead of drum sticks, while “Cartoon Music,” is full of ennui and unremitting boredom of someone caught in a loop, broken only by Tasjan’s insistent guitar. “Dada Bois” is as clever as it is revelatory, with Beach Boy-ian harmonies so pure that you can almost feel the sea spray. “Now You Know” is a deep and naked look right into Tasjan’s psyche, crackling with honesty and doubt so real you can feel the ripples of anxiety, but thankfully dissipate on a wave of hope and a final shimmering guitar note that hangs in the air like a wisp of a cirrus cloud before a rainstorm.

The last two songs, “Not That Bad” and “Got What I Wanted,” pick up that theme, coming to a state of grace both musically and psychically—resolving this sometimes disquieting song cycle with a chiming melody and the quiet assurance that life is what you make of it, and sometimes even more if you just get out of your own way. This is not anxious music for anxious times, but rather music as an antidote for anxious times. It is the sound of the future arriving.


 

Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! Lyrics

Sunday Women

(Aaron Lee Tasjan / Scot Sax)

Whatever happened to Sunday Women?


Sunday women are hard to find

Sunday women don’t break hearts like mine

When you’re with ‘em the stars align


All I wanted was to dream with you

And make one of our dreams come true

Now I sit here with the Monday blues



Computer of Love

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)

Some advanced technology is eating through my brain

Got wires crossed, it bothers me to feel this artificial pain


My little avatar, I’ll never know who you really are

Digital clouds and guiding stars on the computer of love


May the guitar rest in peace for it’s dead once more

What old white men must police whenever they get bored


Eight ladies from the late 80s staring back at me, such beauties on my screen

Fake friends tweet their two cents just to mess with me

Such dangers on my screen



Up All Night

(Aaron Lee Tasjan / Gregory Lattimer)


Saved up all my money and blew all of my money

Cause I really don’t, really don’t, really don’t care

I really don’t, really don’t care


Stayin’ up all night, it could be good or it could be bad for you

It’s gonna be alright or it won’t be


Broke up with my boyfriend to go out with my girlfriend

Cause love is like, love is like, love is like that

Love is like, love is like that


I went to the doctor, she said, “You might have a problem”

“But I really can’t, really can’t, really can’t tell”

“I really can’t, really can’t tell”



Another Lonely Day

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


When I woke up today, yesterday was in my way

I got dressed in what’s left of my clean clothes

In the lazy little glow of a morning TV show

I was alone and unknown when you pulled me close


Ah, spend another lonely day with you


I shot up like a rose and in the sun I froze

Then I laid there in the dirt till I grew again

The hours flower slowly, at times I feel so lonely

As you take me where I go but never where I’ve been


I came up with some plans at the bottom of a couple cans

To reinvent myself as a shining light but as my heart grew dark

It was pumping smoke and sparks and the Reaper laughed as I dashed

Into the night



Don’t Overthink It

(Aaron Lee Tasjan / Patrick Damphier)


Don’t overthink it, don’t overthink it

You’ll never get that little trinket

You’ll take your ship of dreams and sink it

Don’t overthink it


Don’t fall to pieces, don’t fall to pieces

See you in Hell before it freezes, save me a seat

Right next to Jesus, don’t fall to pieces


Boy, been around once or twice, had my heart in a vice

There’s a hurting in store, boy, gotta own what you done

Living under the gun, don’t excuse it no more


Don’t be a stranger, don’t be a stranger

Don’t be a dog in the manger

Love yourself, love your neighbor

Don’t be a stranger


It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter

We’re climbing up the same old ladder

I know the bad is getting badder, it doesn’t matter


Boy, been around once or twice, had my heart in a vice

There’s a hurting in store, boy, gotta own what you done

Living under the gun, don’t excuse it no more

Boy, got a bottle of wine and a lot of free time I’ve been spending alone

Boy, every corner you cut, every door that you shut

Goes straight to the bone



Cartoon Music

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


Cartoon music for cartoon people, nobody knows if they’re real

Cartoon music for cartoon people, they don’t know how to feel


Just wasting your mind away

Same deja vu as yesterday


Look at the colors on your screen

And think of all they’ve come to mean


And now you’re losing your mind



Feminine Walk

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


Always been a workin’ man, playin’ in a rock roll band

Got rags like a drag queen dream, coming undone at the seams

I get one look, two look, three look, four, every time I’m at the bathroom door

You’ve seen Bowie and Bolan and Jagger too

Grace Jones, Joan Jett and To Wong Foo


I got a feminine walk


Rolled out from New York City, like metropolitan Conway Twitty

Got my smokers cough in a Brooklyn loft, used a pseudonym

Had a crush on him, made things for my girl a little too hard

At Dinero’s hotel on her boyfriend’s credit card

He was a sugar daddy with dollar sign eyes, I think he started Spotify


I got a feminine walk, I got a feminine walk

I got legs for days, I got a million ways

I got a feminine walk


Came down to the guitar town, to follow Tin Pan Todd around

Tried to learn his magic tricks, mostly copped his Adderall fix

Then I fell for a boy in drag at Play, danced the lonely nights away

Then up walks this girl who saved my life, with love that cuts like the Randall Knife



Dada Bois

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


I tend to think I’m dyin’, something I get from my mama

I’m only happy cryin’, smokin’ too much marijuana

I’m just a man, with a nothing left to disguise

My love’s a lonely laser beam, sorry if I shoot out your eye


Dada boys, I bleed to love

Gaga girls, you’re my drug

My heart is wild, but it’s true

I love anyone it tells me to


If there’s a space in this city

Someone’s tryin’ to fill it, all the impossibly pretty

Keep tryin’ to kill it, they don’t see me, but would it kill ‘em to try?

I know I make ‘em uncomfortable, but I’m just living my life


Hanging from the mouth of a beautiful world

We ain’t nothing but crooked teeth

Some have holes, some are gold

We all shine somewhere underneath



Now You Know

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


Take this lonely song and break it, there’s no way

I’m gonna make it, nothing’s in the cards I haven’t seen

I’m all out of luck and reasons, that stuff never lasts the seasons

Me? I guess I’m somewhere in between


I’m so far away, I’m so far away

Tried to be a poet, couldn’t find the words

Maybe someday they’ll flow?

That’s all I can say, and now you know


Oh my heart just feels like Monday

You were but a dream of Sunday, I’m still standing at the wishing well

Everything goes by in flashes, little pictures made of plastic

All I have to show for your sweet spell


Now I’m sinking deeper than I ever have before

Missed my window tryin’ to go out the closing door


Shake me from the top down baby, I ain’t ever felt this crazy

What a world I chose to set on fire, paint your town with all my colors

Pain and beauty like no others, dancing like a bird upon a wire



Not That Bad

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


The world outside my window, looks like Nintendo

But I’m not playing games anymore

Read the paper on my phone, and felt so all alone

As I found yet another, feeling to ignore


Life’s in your hands, it’s really not so sad

Pretending things are not that bad


Tried it slow, I tried it faster, I taped over the master

And the silence I recorded sure said it all

It had danger, it had soul, it was the ghost of rock’n’roll

I sent it to the label but I never got a call


Got What I Wanted

(Aaron Lee Tasjan)


Smoke and shadows fall, staring at the wall again

I have made up my mind

Love will only grow, when you let it go, tell me how was I to know?

I had made up my mind


Then I got what I wanted, got what I wanted


Never knew it would feel just a little too real

Never knew it would feel just a little too real