Don't Overdose on Common Sense

Same Shirt, Different Day

Faux Jean is a singer-songwriter from Duluth, Minn. Each week he adds a new song to an evolving record series over on Bandcamp and writes about it here. “From the Mixed Up Files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler” is somewhere between a fake newsletter and a faux press release for the eponymous wabi-sabi private label album series that continues to evolve over there. Thanks for checking it out.

Faux Friends,

My ego is taking the back seat this week as I share vocal duties with my son on today’s new song addition to the “Mixed Up Files.”

I really wanted to be able to say that I released five albums where I played every instrument and sang every vocal

¹

, but this one just started growing on me.

The song is called “Don’t Overdose on Common Sense (The Polar Bear Song).”

You can listen to it in the Bandcamp player below, or as a video with subtitles on Youtube beneath that.

This is actually a fairly new recording—I began tracking this on GarageBand on January 28, 2022.

²

I got my son to sing on it a little bit, just before his voice changed.

The version that I’m sharing today has been on my phone since February 15, 2022, in a folder called “2022 rough earlies etc.”

That is where I put new rough mixes for the album of “new” material that I am hoping to release sometime sooner than later.

Once the song ideas are on my phone, I can listen in the car and try to figure out what needs improvement, etc.

The first attempt at recording this song was in 1997?

Though this is a new recording, this song goes back to 1997, as evidenced in the above photo.

³

Twenty-six years this little idea has been floating in my head.

I must be slow or something. Maybe I just have trouble letting go?

Here are the lyrics:

..And these polar bears

Don't overdose on common sense
'Cause fear of death drives most, hence
Eternal war, religion, cops and pros, and liquor stores.

I want eyes that cry like yours
I want my own ajar glass doors
The wider world eludes me
And sometimes, me, I's elides ease (E's?)
I's elides,
Yeah, I gotta work

And now there's these animals
And people are saying they're cannibals,
Talking 'bout the polar bears
Talking 'bout the polar bears
Talking 'bout the polar bears
And people are saying they're cannibals...

And these polar bears
Polar bears
And they don't care
They're polar bears
Yeah, we're the ones that are cannibals

Don't overdose on common sense
'Cause fear of death drives most, hence
Don't overdose on common sense
'Cause fear of death drives most, hence
Don't overdose
Don't overdose
Don't overdose
Don't!

Speaking of having trouble letting go . . .

Same Shirt, Different Day

This is me in Salzburg, Austria in 1987, wearing a sweatshirt my mother had recently sewn for me.

This me in Irvine California in 2021 wearing the same shirt.

I think my point is that time is a mystery and I might have underwear that is older than you are.

I remain your humble servant,

OX&C,

Faux Jean

1. Except, of course, “Jem’s Bakken Overature,” which featured my dear, departed friend, Steve Bakken.

2. I used a Moog from my iPad to make the funky synth bed.

3. This is a picture of one of the envelopes I found with old songwriting ideas while unpacking the new house two weeks ago.