The Four Seasons

It helped that I was electric.

Volume 3 of FTMUFOMMTS has begun.

Faux Luvas,

Wintertime, Love fell down on me…

As you can see in the graphic above, I have begun Volume III of “The Mixed Up Files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler” over at Bandcamp.¹

I am excited about this, because 3 is a magic number.²

The album kicks off with a song called “The Four Seasons,” a cassette demo that I recorded in 1998 or 99.³

You can listen to it here as an mp3:

You can also listen to it here as a wav file via Bandcamp:

I will be adding a new song to the record every week and sharing it here through Spring 2023.

I do love this recording.

It brings me back to Chester Bowl in Duluth, Minn., where I fell in love with the girl who inspired this song.⁴

Chester Bowl, the little ski hill where I grew up skiing.

I could walk to this ski hill from my house, and a season pass was less than 20 bucks in those days (circa 1983).

My friends and I spent most of our time there, inhaling the intense winter air on the outside, and the intense hot-dog-water-scented air inside the chalet.

Up the hill behind the chalet, we built a sort of fort or lean-to that provided some coverage from the cold.

I remember cuddling there with Juanita,⁵ in sub-freezing temps, kissing depite our running noses and the howling wind. It was a dream.

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There is something electric about the texture of feeling in your youth.

I remember driving home from the Northwoods of Wisconsin in winter and seeing the Christmas lights and feeling an intense love of the season.⁶

I remember turning up the record player to 8 in the den at our house, and listening to the crackle of the tubes being pushed beyond their comfort zone, and feeling that electricity.

It helped that I would have my eyeball smashed up against the red garnet light near the bottom of the console that indicated the record player was on.

It helped that I was electric.

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The seasons changed and I would still see Juanita at Chester Bowl; there was always a good reason to go there: concerts⁷, hiking, swimming, the lean-to.

Eventually, I got a job that prevented me from going up there as much, and since Juantia went to a different school, we stopped seeing each other by and by.

The Canal Park Inn in Duluth, Minn., my first “job” job.

It’s all in the song.

I have aspirations of animating a video for this song, and I even recorded an intro to the video, from which this still photo is taken:

Still from the video intro which, alas, remains incomplete.

You’ll be among the first to know when I complete this project, I assure you.

But today, the kids are home from school and I must pull them away from their devices before all of our brains turn to mush, and get outside, where, despite the fact that it is now winter, we have 70 degree temps and no snow.

It is strange being in a place where the seasons don’t feel so season-y.

Here are the lyrics for the song:

the four seasons

winter time
love fell down on me
she and i, in a coat so warm
we made angels in the snow
and we saw our own haloes
glowing in the moon at night
and the moon was shining bright
on us

spring time
buds were on the trees
she and i
on a bed evergreen
we slept under the stars
i saw saturn taking mars
i felt venus upon us
and the stars shone bright on us
and the northern lights

summer time
brings the heat and haze
she and i underneath the waves
the waves
swimming back and forth
garden was our street then
hidden was our beach then
and i was so free then
and i was . . .

autumn
leaves fell from the trees
she and i
hoar frost in our dreams
in our dreams
walking on the trail home
knowing i was not alone
winter coming with her cold
when love first fell down like snow
and i know . . .freeeeeeee

i got a job
at a hamburger stand
sometimes driving a van
(or a truck)
for a man
and it seems somehow
all this work
it took its toll
i lost her

If you follow Faux Jean on Bandcamp, you should have received this email today:

If you don’t follow, please consider doing so, while I remain your humble servant,

OX&C,

Faux Jean

1. If you are new here, this newsletter serves as the publicity arm of the Faux Jean enterprise, a going concern that releases music to the world with startling regularity.

2. And it represents progress, the passing of the seasons, if you will.

3. The Faux Jean band recorded a version of this song which appeared on “Light it Up / Burn it Down” in 2006.

4. Also, it sounds pretty deece for something recorded on a cassette tape using SM-57s.

5. Her name has been changed to protect her identity.

6. There was a grain elevator on Lake Superior that would hang lights in the shape of a Christmas tree on their roof that really sticks out.

7. Remind me to tell you about the first time I ever got punched by an adult at a summer concert there—my kids love that story.