I had to copy-paste this from the press release:
“Tommy Boy is about living in a bad part of town, so you need a gun, but you don’t want to own one because your mental health is bad. Guess you’re going to have to fight with your hands. Best of luck.
I wrote this song after I picked up a friend of mine from a shooting earlier this year in my hometown Portland, OR, one of the most criminally rampant cities in the US. I wanted to bring awareness to a scary reality that Portland feels closer to Gotham than what you would see on FXs Portlandia.
This song touches on the paradox of gun violence, mental health and a city that is the shell of what it once was. I write in Tommy Boy, “I held you in my arms, I knew it’d be too long”. I yelp in the outro, “You said that I need a gun, or I should ditch this city and run!”.”
We live in a scary world and this story (song) is just proof of that.
“We’ve got to ditch this city and run
We’ve got to ditch this city and run
We’ve got our whole lives in front of us
We’ve got to ditch this city and run
Oh no, it’s happening, again
Oh no, it’s happening, again
Oh no, it’s happened, once again”
Sometimes I think about where would I go when things go bad in my country and often I thought the USA, but hearing so many sad stories coming from that country is changing my opinion very much. There is no safe place on this Earth, I just believe there will be one in the afterlife…
Either way, this song’s message is strong and I really enjoyed the instruments as well. I will re-listen to it again and again just to feel it…
You can find more music on Spotify.