The History of Audubon Park, Part Six

The first song I wrote for Audubon Park was "Bardstown." In this song you can hear all of the hallmarks of "An Audubon Park Song": A riff that is clearly lifted from an 80s heartland rock song ("Baby Vaughan, Your Life Is on Fire" and "Frightened by the Lake"), two verses ( "The Blasted Heath," "Ghettos of the Sun" or "Oh Register, Why Are You Crying"), nothing that resembles a chorus ("Register," "Sunbathers," and "Yardbird Sings Metal"), a long bridge with six or so chords that none of us remember ("Pleasant Hill," "Tree Full of Snakes," April in Kentucky"), and then an outro that has no musical relationship to the preceding sections (All of the above mentioned). We just have to face: I do how I do.

I wrote "Bardstown" while sitting on the futon in the the duplex that Jennifer and I lived in on Lindsay Street in Carrboro. I was watching television and idly strumming. I think I was strumming Matt's acoustic guitar, which means I borrowed it, which means I must have been planning on recording, which means that maybe "Bardstown" wasn't the first song I wrote for the band.

That we place so much importance on the trustworthiness of memories is frightening.

Bardstown, Kentucky, is where bourbon comes from. The "sparkling bottles of Tavern" are empty bottles of Kentucky Tavern, cheap whiskey for college kids on a budget. The academic team references is my Future Problem Solving team. I don't know what "Future Problem Solving" is now and I didn't know then. I just enjoyed being around people. In those two lines is another Audubon Park Thing: The blending of transparently cultivated naiveté and transparently cultivated worldliness. The truth is, we both don't not know as much as we act like and don't know as much as we let on. Don't worry, I'm confused too.

Once, I did get to see a bar fight and it was awesome.

When we recorded the song, the first one we recorded, listening to the play back, to the dry guitars plinking away and Ben's drums thumping and the wild synthesizer sounds melting over the fuzz bass, I realized that we were the best band of all time. I know this is another trick of my memory, but nothing has ever sounded as good to me as that first play back of that one song.