JEFF ROSENSTOCK

WORRY.

"The album you are about to listen to, WORRY., only furthers and exceeds the myth of Jeff Rosenstock, he who is mythical for being the most normal dude from a boring place any of us have ever met; mythical for sticking to his guns when all logic points in the other direction; mythical for writing melodies that stick in our brains and lyrics that rip our guts out; mythical most of all for being not mythical at all. He’s just Jeff. It’s not that complicated. But in a world where everything is driven by branding and image and hidden agendas, being not that complicated makes him perhaps the most complicated artist I know." -- Chris Gethard click here to download the album for free!

1. We Begged 2 Explode

2. Pash Rash

3. Festival Song

4. Staring Out The Window At Your Old Apartment

5. Wave Goodnight To Me

6. To Be A Ghost...

7. Pietro, 60 Years Old

8. I Did Something Weird Last Night

9. Blast Damage Days

10. Bang On The Door

11. Rainbow

12. Planet Luxury

13. HELLLLHOOOOLE

14. June 21st

15. The Fuzz

16. ...While You're Alive

17. Perfect Sound Whatever

Mostly recorded from April 26 - May 2 at the Panoramic House in Stinson Beach, CA & May 3 - May 11 at The Atomic Garden in East Palo Alto, CA. Some overdubby shit was done at Quote Unquote Records in Brooklyn, NY. 100-person gang vocals recorded at 1-2-3-4 Go! in Oakland, CA. Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Jack Shirley. John DeDomenici - Bass

Kevin Higuchi - Drums, Percussion, Vox

Mike Huguenor - Guitar, Vox

Jeff R. - Vox, Guitar, Keyboards, Saxophone, Etc. Additional Vocals by Angelina Banda, Giles Bidder, Lauren Brief, Sim Castro, Christine Mackie, Dan Potthast, Jack Shirley and 100 nice people in Oakland. This record contains a sample from Jesse Michaels' Indie Rock Blog, used with permission. Thanks, Jesse. Cover photo by Hiro Tanaka.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

1. WE BEGGED 2 EXPLODE Someone’s gonna bleed and dribble trails in the snow, stretching to the bus from an overstuffed home we begged to explode. Laura said to me, “This decade’s gonna be fucked. Friends will disappear after they fall in love and get married. Isn’t that shit like crazy? The workin’, havin’ babies and promotions? The cheatin’, cryin’, leavin’ and divorcin’?” As we’re bouncing up and down trying to make the floor break, stop sneering at our joy like it’s a careless mistake. You fuckheads complain because you like to complain, like I blame rock and roll when it’s just the champagne that keeps me detaching from reality, just waiting for someone to come and save me. Won’t somebody fucking please come and save me? Oh please, hurry up, someone, come and save me from all these magic moments I’ve forgotten. On a weary floor that can’t support all of us, in a giddy haze and dancing carpet to dust. All these magic moments I’ve forgotten. All these magic moments I’ll forget once the magic is gone.

2. PASH RASH

I’ve been doing this for half my years; I’ve been mouthing off in bars, trading shame for self-respect. My trajectory is crystal clear. I can see it in the stars that frame the shame above my neck and the sky is always pitch black. When I sneak away, I only wanna come back and see your face again. I want to listen to The Cribs, my dear, while we make out in your car. Fuck the haters who object - they’ve overrated self-respect. The sky is always pitch black when I sneak away. I only wanna come back and see your face again. To see your face again, not borne on beams from outer space through AMOLED displays. To see your face again. 3. FESTIVAL SONG

It feels completely ridiculous that I’m a willing participant, gazing at the purple and pinks in the shadow of a bank-sponsored skyline. “Unite against the establishment!™ (while drones transmit the images to a server farm in the valley for a culture that will eat its own insides.)” Oh, they wouldn’t be your friend if you weren’t worth something. They wouldn’t be your friend if it wasn’t worth it, if you didn’t have something they could take. Take a long look at the billboards that smother the air ‘til you can’t ignore ‘em and glamorize department store crust-punk-chic ‘cause Satan’s trending up and it’s Fashion Week but this is not a movement. It’s just careful entertainment for an easy demographic in our sweatshop denim jackets and we’ll wonder, “What just happened?!” when the world becomes Manhattan where the banks steal the apartments just to render them abandoned. We’re not stupid people but this financial oppression has got everyone believing all that we can do is nothing ‘cause we organize through avenues they lace with advertisements so the ones we try to rage against are still lining their pockets. Oh, they wouldn’t be your friend if you weren’t worth something.

4. STARING OUT THE WINDOW AT YOUR OLD APARTMENT

Someone hung a decorative surfboard up where your records and movies belong. This light makes it nearly impossible to see if they fixed all the cracks in the wall. Staring out the window at your old apartment, imagining the old you stumbling through tacky renovations that the landlord wanted to cash in on the boom. You don’t know where to go now. You’ve got nowhere to go now. I wish you’d come down and meet me here; I’m gridlocked, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve had a bad year. The city don’t care if you live or you die. It’s just gonna grow and it doesn’t care why you’re tired of kicking and fighting through life and left me alone on this cold winter night just staring out the window at your old apartment... 5. WAVE GOODNIGHT TO ME

I used to walk down to the docks in spring and drink tallboys on the rocks by the water, under the watchful eye of dayglo cranes that spread like floods from corner to corner and waved goodnight to me. So when it all fell down, I should have been prepared. They spent the last five years yelling, “Come on! Come on! Come on! Get out of here!”

I wish it didn’t hurt.

I wish I didn’t care.

They spent the last five years yelling, “C’mon! Get out of here!” Yeah, ignorance is bliss until the day the things you ignored all come into focus and those “conveniences” leave cavities that can’t get filled ‘cause you didn’t notice. Wave goodnight to me. Wave goodnight to the sleepless city too tired to fight. They’re pushing you out in the name of Progress and selling your memories to the tourists. 6. TO BE A GHOST...

Fuck off, the internet. I’m tired of circling amongst apologists who love ignoring the reality of unarmed civilians executed publicly. They want you to be a ghost when they rob you of your hope, but you’ve got power when they’re not expecting anything. Born as a data mine for targeted marketing, and no one will listen up until you become a hashtag or a meme but hate’s not a fad that dies with its virality. They want you to be a ghost when they rob you of your hope, but you’ve got power when they’re not expecting anything. I rush to my phone because I don’t wanna feel alone. They forced us to grow into a world without a soul. Your frozen with dread as their chatter becomes deafening. If you’re tired of being told to stop complaining about the cold, burn those fuckers in their homes. Burst their bubble and break their bones. They want you to be a ghost. They want you to be a ghost, but we’ve got power ‘cause they can’t stop the things that they refuse to see.

7. PIETRO, 60 YEARS OLD

“Pietro, 60 years old, will you wait for me? Keep me warm in the cold? Will you stay with me in Brooklyn Heights where the city clerk’s line’s moving slow, slow, slow? They’ll feed us directives in some language that we don’t know and we don’t have to know.”

8. I DID SOMETHING WEIRD LAST NIGHT

I arrived drenched in morning light and it churned my guts unless I closed my eyes. Made it up the stairs to the bed inside without puking up a fantastic time. And everything so unexpectedly started to feel like a dream but I couldn’t stop drifting out when the magic would spin. 2:00 PM: I missed my class again. Did you miss yours too because you’re sleeping in? Are the two of us both imagining seven-hour round-trips into each others’ beds? And everything so unexpectedly started to feel like a dream but I was preoccupied with how the magic would end because nothing intangible remains sustainable. Hope is a scheme.

Will I ever see you again and if I see you soon will you want to see me? Or will you just want to sneak away? Did I creep you out like a scary movie? I hope that we feel the same. I hope that we feel the same. Fuck. Oh, I did something weird last night. I made out in the van with a girl I like. We were kinda drunk, but it seemed alright, so we made out for the entire ride and everything so unexpectedly started to feel like a dream... if I see you soon will you want to see me or will you just want to sneak away? Will you kiss me hard like a garbage movie? I hope that we feel the same. I hope I’m not reading into this too much, it’s a kiss. But is there someone thinking of me when I’m feeling alone and I’m spending weekends staring at the wall. If there’s someone thinking of you when you’re feeling alone, how can that compare to nothing nice at all?

And if I see you soon will you want to see me or will you just try to sneak away? Will you kiss me hard like some shit in a terrible movie? I hope that we feel the same.

9. BLAST DAMAGE DAYS

Whenever days slip away and every moment with me feels like I’m floating in space because I want to believe these are my halcyon days, but I’m afraid of my age and don’t know anyone’s name because I can’t concentrate, oh, I am never letting go of you. Whenever weeks slip away from being caught in the wake of the American craze - the overtime, underpaid. These are the Amazon days, we are the binge watching age and we’ll be stuck in a screen until our phones fall asleep. I am never letting go of you. We’ll get lost and wander off distracted by fake news. When our towns fall to the ground it won’t shatter me and you and when we’re looking around at all the shit that went down ‘cause half of us were too scared and half of us were too proud to see the systems we start are destined to fall apart when we let power and greed corrupt our collective heart, oh, I am never letting go of you. We’ll get lost and wander off enraptured by fake doom. When our towns fall to the ground, oh, it won’t shatter me and you whenever we feel ashamed being alive and awake in such an era of hate and military police. These are the mass murder days. We are the blast damage age where we can’t love anything because they keep us afraid, oh, I will be there kicking, fighting, beating, screaming, “There’s no fucking way I’m ever letting go of you.”

10. BANG ON THE DOOR

I wanna say I’m just paranoid, but I’m not. There was a bang on the door and we can keep pretending that this isn’t really happening or wait until the noise goes away. We can declare our grand ambitions about living somewhere different but we aren’t doing anything today. We can avoid the telephone when it’s a number we don’t know but we don’t even know what they’re gonna say. I’m tired of the downstairs neighbors judging me when I come home late and drunk. I’m tired of them judging me from across the street for the time that I wake up. I’m tired of the constant fear of building something here when I know for sure they’ll leave us high and dry without thinking twice when we can’t pay more.

There was a bang on the door. 11. RAINBOW

Progress reaches down from the sky, dropping bins and couches on the curb outside. We’ll spend the weekend fillinh the holes and caulking the cracks that stretch across the ceiling while the economic disaster destroys all the color and life as it slowly moves southeast and I’m like a magnet pulling the storm. Oh, where can I move when it always finds me? Where else can I stay? There’s a storm cloud pissing rainbows on the cubes that blossomed on our old street as the vultures walk the power lines. They’re looking for something to eat. They wanna hear us scream, “We ain’t got no money, we ain’t got no money! You got me! Please don’t take my love away, my home from me today!”

12. PLANET LUXURY

The ones in power built a dream on guarantees of luxury and sold it like it’s magic to the poor. They trick you into thinking all it takes it just a little bit of effort once your foot is in the door. They brutalize your confidence and drain you of your energy until you’re always tired and unsure. They make a lot of promises but keep on taking everything so you always want more. 13. HELLLLHOOOOLE

They would pluck us from the lives we’re living with no fucks given and profit from the pain, forcing you and I to feel like children ‘cause if they didn’t we wouldn’t be too scared to say that we don’t wanna live inside a hellhole and waste our energy on all these assholes.

I’ve gone to the platform. Spent a long time waiting with ceilings dripping as mice run through the rain. Why do we accept the hand we’re given? The dealer’s grinning, she knows we’re terrified of change but we don’t wanna live inside a hellhole and give our money to some fucking asshole. We don’t wanna live inside a hellhole. I’m gone. I’m gone. We don’t wanna live inside a hellhole. I’m gone.

14. JUNE 21ST

It’s beautiful out there’s nothing I’d rather do than slay the nightmare arm in arm with you. I didn’t leave the house all day for the last thirty Saturdays. It’s time to trade the darkness for a view because it’s June 21st and this winter was the worst we’ve ever seen, but we made it through the freeze. Now it’s 84 degrees forever. 15. THE FUZZ

I can’t stand feeling violent but it’s hard not to sometimes, when the innocent get slaughtered and the guilty get a fine. When I drown myself in chemicals, do I even have a choice? And if you scream and no one hears you, are you even making noise? We don’t need to be coddled or to be told life is fair by an omnipresent army with a power to be feared. So as we time out half-assed platforms, as the victims form a line, will the Riot Squad Protection Force ever try to fight for life? All I want to do is hold you, but I’m afraid I’ll squeeze too tight, until the energy leaves your body and the tears fall from your eyes. All I want to do is hold you, and I’m gonna squeeze you tight, until I feel your heart restarting. I’ll bring the joy back to your life. 16. ...WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE

When you’re a ghost, they’ll sit around and talk about how they liked you the most. When you’re a dream, I’ll wake up to warm sun-rays that make me want to scream. I wanna let you know while you’re alive because everybody loves you when you die, but when it matters they’re not there, not there. When love is dead, we’ll remember gentle nudges keeping us in bed, or laughing at funerals, queasy at carnivals, listening to heartbeats slowing down as we keep growing old, yeah. I gotta let you know while you’re alive ‘cause I’ll be a disaster when you die - chubby body, no hair, don’t care. It’s not like the love that they showed us on TV. It’s a home that can burn. It’s a limb to freeze.

It’s worry.

Love is worry.

Yeah. 17. PERFECT SOUND WHATEVER

When I’m aching for their respect, I won’t abandon anything. When I’m shaken awake by regrets, I’ll try to just get back to sleep. Perfect always takes so long because it don’t exist. It doesn’t exist.

Next time I see you I’ll find better words than I’m sorry.

Perfect always takes so long because it don’t exist. It doesn’t exist.