01. Writer
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Brian Stout

02. Theme
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Found

03. MUSIC INSPIRATION
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Jawbreaker:
Unlisted Track

04. WRITING
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When I was in my twenties, I used to go places on my own because I was impatient with waiting for other people to be available. I didn’t want to miss a thing–not that band, not that one-week only engagement of that Sundance Audience Award Winner, not that fully-restored print.

Now I go places on my own because I’ve (theoretically) aged out of a lot of the things I still love and I’m unwilling to relinquish them. It is liberating to be at a show and give zero fucks about how I am perceived.

I wish someone would have told me when I was 17 that no one cares at all about what you are doing, who you are there with, which band shirt you have on, or how you choose to show your appreciation for the music, as long as you’re not hurting anyone around you.

These days, I’m even more invisible, and I genuinely don’t mind. It’s fun to be carefree at shows, and if anything, it gives me a tinge of sadness that I spent so much time feeling like I couldn’t just be myself.

In this mindset, I walked a few blocks from my hotel to the House of Blues. I first saw Jawbreaker a little over 25 years ago. The first time was the culmination of a few weeks of nonstop Dear You listening. From the moment I finished my first listen to 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, it quickly became canon, spoken about the way people talked about The Replacements’ Let it Be ten years before.

On a Saturday afternoon in September 1995, I went to my favorite record store, the one that sold CDs as soon as they arrived rather than waiting for official release dates, to pick up Dear You. It was what I expected in many ways. Major label debuts always had bigger production, more complicated songs. I had no idea this is what I wanted from Jawbreaker, but it turned out to be exactly what I wanted. The sample at the end of “Jet Black” made me run out to Blockbuster Video to grab a VHS of Annie Hall. That became an obsession, too.

That night, I found myself standing on the main floor near an old friend from back home, just like someone in one of Jawbreaker’s songs might be. I stood there shouting the words with quivering lips under my mask and tears in my eyes at times, overwhelmed by the experience of it all–the band I’ve loved for over 25 years playing the songs that comforted me, made me laugh, gave me space to sulk and wallow, but now make me glad I got past all that sadness of my teens and twenties.

What wrecked me was the passage of time–these songs hit even harder now that I have real-life to tie them to. Back in 1995, it was me connecting to some sort of preview of adulthood. I had very little real life happen to me yet. I had barely any kisses to my name, let alone the one million referenced in the centerpiece of Dear You. 

It would be easy for me to look back and pretend like those were imaginary dramas of me being too scared to talk to girls and devastated when I wasn’t and it didn’t work out. But I can’t dismiss those feelings, nor should I. I’ll need to remember that as my kids age, too, to take their lives and their feelings seriously. 

If anything, the songs resonate even more so now. When I was young and I spiraled over every date that didn’t go well, every unrequited crush, every “no” that followed an awkward me asking someone on a date, the authentic sadness of those songs was what I connected with. “It hasn’t been my day for a couple years. What’s a couple more?” is just vague enough to fit much of that period of my life, even if my adult self would say, “You have no idea what’s coming.”

Seeing someone I liked out with someone new made me listen to “Sluttering (May 4th)” on repeat. And then I’d follow that to “Jet Black” and it’s “If you don’t ask I won’t upset you.” I tried to convince myself I could be Jet Black to the center.

“Million” once filled me with longing for a first serious love, or something like love. Now, I feel weary from pursuing, trying, and failing, but still hoping something will stick. I stood there, awash in all these feelings coming from insights that seemed to just be happening to me in those moments. See the prize but you can’t have it.

I stood there tearfully singing along to “Basilica,” thinking of how I’d certainly felt as low as the friend in that song and I’d talked to friends who also felt that low, how we’d managed to keep each other going. The catharsis of the end of the song rang out, and I walked out into the night after a stop at the merch table. I still need this, now more than ever.