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Autobio (Part One)

by Val Emmich

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1.
freshman year ‘93 a neighborhood party suddenly an older guy punched me dead in the eye i just sat there in my lawn chair as my eye turned red i imagined what I should have said but you can’t freeze time in the summer time first you’re laughing then it hits you that these are not your friends before the blood had run dry he apologized don’t know why I shook his hand too in shock to understand said someone dared him just to do me in they didn’t like my face had to put me in my place now I freeze time how my cheek it shined first I'm laughing then it hits me these are not my friends I just sat there while everybody stared the faces all blend been twenty years and they are not my friends black and blues never fade you just tuck them away black and blues never go follow where you roam black and blue as a kid all the damage it did
2.
we packed my mom’s car and we got on the road we had a trip-tick told us where to go out west to Pittsburgh and Chicago up to Wisconsin to my uncle’s home we blew our cigarettes out our open windows raised the volume till we were deaf we said, we are going somewhere but we’re not there yet we crossed Wyoming to Yellowstone swam in a river on the side of a road we slept the three of us in a tiny tent we made a fire, got totally bent we made it to the coast and we stripped off all our clothing got high and made a toast we said, we are going somewhere but we’re not there yet back east through Utah we started to crack we said some dark things we couldn’t take back atop the canyon we felt too small all our momentum had slowed to a crawl we missed our own clean beds but no one would admit it no, we pounded on our chests we said, we are going somewhere but we’re not there yet then finally reaching home we didn’t feel we were ready had so much left to go we said, we are going somewhere but we’re not there yet
3.
just now I met a girl with a shaved fuzzy head she is playing the piano, she is sitting on the bench and I later find out we’re in the same writing class has a hyphenated last name and she snorts when she laughs and then back in my room, she’s got nothing underneath and her eyes they look like water, I think I’m lost at sea I am falling down I got both feet off the ground I can’t get enough this boy’s in love and she folds up her notes done in charcoal and pen stages nude photographs and she’s tight with all my friends puts her hand on my lap while she’s steering the car and she eases up her skirt, can't remember where we are and I’m writing her songs and she’s singing along and I still can’t figure out why it feels like something’s wrong I am falling down don’t know when I’ll touch the ground I’m too high above this boy’s in love and I finally learn why her fingers all have scars she gets rid of all her food in the bathrooms of bars and her sex gets so rough, says she needs to feel pain tells me when she was a child her stepfather was to blame when she steps on the ledge it takes two of us to save her I know I can’t leave yet but I know that it’s over I am falling down can you hear that awful sound? screaming from above this boy’s in love I am falling down so very quick I got turned around someone help me up this boy’s in love get me off this drug this boy’s in love
4.
my first girl wore her socks up to her knees had my teenage heart just beating right out of me i was into her just as much as she was into me my first girl she still means everything my first girl had a thick short black mane was obsessed with Romeo & Juliet with Claire Danes she looked more like Winona Ryder from Reality Bites my first girl I dream of her some nights alone in her house after school in a back room she wore boys underwear I had nothing to compare it to my hands were clammy cold on her skin but she didn’t mind my first girl is with me all the time we went to the same university she wrote a heartfelt note to me but I couldn’t lie, i was not ready to go back to what we were still we made out on her bed it felt just like I remembered it and I thought I would return again but that was the last time our lips met my first girl i still have regrets my first girl stays in touch with my family she’s got kids of her own that I have never seen i chose to leave her behind to see what was out there my first girl I wonder if she still cares my first girl I see her everywhere my first girl is somewhere out there
5.
my father took a kitchen knife and shoved it in his side all the while me and my little brother looked him in the eyes and it was not the first time I saw more than I should see months before broke thru the door to shake him out of sleep the ambulance arrived in time but real help never came I still have the note he left from the time he planned to shoot a nail through his brain you never know what’s normal till you see how others live my father gave me everything he had the means to give I’m old enough to know just how easy you can bruise and the shape you’re in is clear and solid proof that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you you the nurse she dug the catheter deep into my vein watched the medicine drip down the tube three times everyday but what no one knew I still got high during football games another time was driving drunk the cops pulled us aside they searched the car clean up and down but somehow didn’t find the plastic bag just lying there it would’ve surely changed my life now I don’t feel so lucky but I know that I am I live and I breathe, have ten fingers on my hands looking back I see that I barely made it through and the shape I’m in as clear as it can be that whatever doesn’t kill me makes me me my mother went to meetings learned to deal with dad’s disease and later she got diagnosed, had chemotherapy and now my oldest sister has adopted mother’s genes and my other sister lives with her own amount of pain and my little brother doesn’t sleep has too much in his brain and here I am, I’m thinking how we’re different but the same even though we’ve come so far, seems like somethings never change when we feel too vulnerable we’re pretty quick to blame all the wars the family fought have made us all insane my parents sold the house and my sisters moved away now we only reunite on certain holidays and every time we do it gets messy but it’s love and all the vivid memories, they’re mixing inside us they bubble to the surface they can be so dangerous cuz the shape we’re in it’s pretty obvious that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us us

about

"One of Emmich's most personal and reflective recordings to date."
--Jim Testa, The Jersey Journal

credits

released November 11, 2014

Written by Val Emmich
Recorded & Mixed by Jason Cupp at Seaside Lounge in Brooklyn, NY.
Additional recording & mixing in Jersey City, NJ.
Mastered by Tom Ruff at Asbury Media.

Music by:
Val Emmich - vocals, acoustic
David Bassiri - guitar, banjo, lap steel
Jeremy Gelade - upright bass
Mickey Riad - keys, melodica
Jason Taylor - drums, percussion

Additional percussion by Jason Cupp

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Val Emmich Jersey City, New Jersey

Singer-Songwriter / Novelist / Actor

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