Onward To Yesterday is now available!

The regular edition of the Onward To Yesterday CD can now be ordered online (over there on the right) or purchased at any of my shows. It's not yet in any stores, but stay tuned.

Thanks again to everyone who preordered the Limited Edition CD. I do still have a few copies of the Limited Edition, but they are no longer available for online order. If you want one you'll have to come find me. And you can start tonight in Concord NH, as I'll be hosting Open Mike night at The Red Blazer. The show starts at 8pm. Onward!

The CDs have arrived!

Hey, would you look at that. The good folks at Diskfaktory got the CDs delivered ahead of my projected release date! So preorders are shipping out now! If you've ordered the Limited Edition CD, you'll be getting yours in the mail soon. :)

There are still a few Limited Edition CDs available, so you still have a chance to grab one. The regular version of the CD will be available online in the next few days, and can be purchased at shows starting, let's say, now. I'm at Shooter's Tavern and Pizzaria in Belmont NH tonight with my trio (Jimbo's Garage).

Proud.

This song, originally written for Song Fight (www.songfight.org), came at a time when I was toying with a few ideas. I wanted to work with alternate guitar tuning; I was enamored with the internal rhyming in Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters songs; and for all my progress, I was feeling like my work as a musician wasn't going anywhere. This song is about rediscovering what music is to me. The Onward To Yesterday album takes its name from this track.


Proud

Onward to yesterday
A backlog of dues to pay
You're told to be proud
For holding it down
Making the best of it
Faking the rest of it
Review and replay
The last wasted day

Then you rise in the light of her eyes
And you find this is why you're alive

Blaze your undrafted path
Brace for the aftermath
That threatens your lives
And never arrives
Facing obscurity
Chasing eternity
You're told to be proud
For waiting it out

Then you rise in the light of her eyes
And you find this is why you're alive

(instr.)

Will you rise in the light of her eyes
When you find this is why you're alive


This song (and all the others on Onward To Yesterday) can be heard on the music player to the right.

God Hates Penguins.

I'll be honest with you; I like this song a lot, but I wasn't going to put it on Onward To Yesterday. It just seemed too incongruous to me. But a lot of people wanted to see it on there. It often surprises me which of my songs will resonate with listeners. Asshat is a very good example. Anyway, this Song Fight title came out not long after the March Of The Penguins movie, and I chose to write a sincere Beatles-esque number for it.


God Hates Penguins

Every creature great and small
They say the Lord God loves them all
But I would question what He calls okay...

God hates penguins, that's for sure
What else could it be
Why else would they have to fly the frozen sea
God made penguins' lives absurd
But not if it was me
'Cause why would I design a life of misery

He who made the mighty owl
Made the flightless waterfowl
It makes me wonder if it's just a game

God hates penguins I suppose
And only God knows why
It makes me wonder what he thinks of you and I

But with a better look I find
That for it all they just don't mind
And is a life untested a life at all

Does God hate penguins, I don't know
Sometimes it seems that way
But we may find that He could change his mind someday
And through the sky we'll watch the penguins fly...


This song (and all the others on Onward To Yesterday) can be heard on the music player to the right.

Brownie Points.

A song from the Nur Ein competition. At the Nur Ein, song titles are provided along with a non-optional songwriting challenge. This particular stage required a change in time signature in the song. Fun! I'm not sure what compelled me to write a song about a mom bilking the Welfare system, but I have known people who have taken that road, I guess.


Brownie Points

Monday - off to work we go
But you did it all years ago
And it's a good thing you got going in here
And they said you'd never find a career
You did the one thing that you knew how to do
Word is that you were good at it too
Now you're the warden of the family jail
Waiting for your brownie points in the mail

You can just sit around
And you can just wait around
'Cause you know it's gonna come around
And that's all you gotta do
To get what is coming to you

Payday - about God damn time
They don't even make you get in a line
But the mailbox is so far away
Maybe you'll go out and get it later today
You got things to do and things to see
With the little ones and the big TV
We all know that you work like Hell
Watching those kids try to raise themselves

But you're gonna sit around
'Cause you know you can just wait around
And somehow it's all gonna come around
And that's all you gotta do
To get what is coming to you

You can just sit around
You can just wait around
You know it's gonna come around
And that's all you gotta do
Excuse me, I gotta get back to work so that you
Can get what is coming to you


This song (and all the others on Onward To Yesterday) can be heard on the music player to the right.

How Do You Like The Colors

Another guy-and-guitar piece that got a full-band arrangement for Onward To Yesterday. This song was inspired by a pickup truck I saw at Wal*Mart. It had a bumper sticker on it that said THESE COLORS DON'T RUN, and the American flag on the sticker had almost completely faded off. There was also a yellow SUPPORT THE TROOPS ribbon that had gone gray, but that might just have been from road salt. Anyway, the title came up at Song Fight (http://www.songfight.org/), and the song practically wrote itself.


How Do You Like The Colors

How do you like the colors
On the magnet on your car
Do you remember when you bought it
Did you think it'd go this far
When you went and got your ribbon
Did you ever think they'd fade
Did your anger dull down with 'em
And the promise that you made?

'Cause you used to say
This time we won't run away
Not this time
This time we're here to stay

How do you like the colors
They get fainter every day
Will you go and buy another
When the yellow turns to gray
Was it proudly made in China
Or in the USA
And does it even really matter
If you can't read it anyway?

But it used to say
This time we won't run away
Not this time
This time we're here to stay

How do you like the colors
On the magnet on your car
Do you remember when you bought it
Did you think it'd go this far
And when you tire of the mission
Like the magnet on your car
Is it a modern-day condition
Or just part of who we are?


This song (and all the others on Onward To Yesterday) can be heard on the music player to the right.

Download card.

The Limited Edition of Onward To Yesterday (only available by preorder) comes with a digital download card. With it, you can visit http://www.dfjams.com/jim_tyrrell and enter the code on the card, which allows access to a mp3 album of outtakes from the OTY sessions. There's a lot of stuff there that you won't hear anywhere else.

Preorders are limited to 50 CDs, so get yours while you can! Each is signed and numbered, and features its own one-of-a-kind cover art.