It was 1999. In the 90s I’d made a bunch of cassette only records and tried to get booked at all the places that'd have a guy that played guitar and wrote his own songs. I recorded stuff at home on a 4-track. It was a heady time. I had long hair and I could drink.
I followed a girl I was into out to the west coast, Seattle and I wrote letters home. There were rock stars in the bars that were my same age.
One of the people I wrote home to got inspired and when my relationship ended and I came home with my tail between my legs, my friend was three days from moving out to Seattle to join me.
When he got there he was more successful than I was. He got a job booking shows at a big club and some bars and he invited me back out to play and make some money. I went. I did make money. I made one of my 4 track tapes into a CD. I partied and mingled.
My friend crashed his car a little onto one of those brick planter medians in the University district careening home from downtown. The car ground to a halt in front of the place he rented a room and never moved again. The bus from downtown to the U district at the time was the 44. He took to calling it the shame train. I named the band after what he called the bus.
I toyed with the whole idea. The success I came to and the attention that lead to me making a record with a band was all due to him in a certain respect.
He talked me into brewery gigs and hanging out with up and comers who were around on the scene- Pete Krebs, Elery Jett… I can't remember who else.
Anyhoo.
I wrote this song and it went on the first band album.
I didn't know how he felt about it until the night after having played my first show in nearly a decade. He drunkenly told me.
It felt to me like his deal was this, never expressed, parasocial, revering, like I’d written it for him. He was hammered.
It was a little weird for me. Years later, rather recently, I learned it and played it in a couple shows.
The audience told me it was good.
You're a Star
I'm the one who convinced you to buy my line. Though it seems cruel to say so señorita gave up the peso. Now baby here’s a gun. You can’t say you're afraid of flyin’. Check your watch and recall who’s buyin’. You're a Star baby say the line. And when you're taken with fits call in sick, and take the 44. You're lucky to be alive. Who gives a s**t about the car. Play your hits in some roadhouse bar. Tell yourself it's the way you are. It's a gift that you got this far. And when you're taken with fits call in sick and take the 44. You're lucky to be alive. Who gives a s**t about the car. Play your hits in some roadhouse bar. Tell yourself it's the way you are. Say the line baby, you're a Star. Baby you're a Star. Baby you're a Star.
I made a video.
You can by the whole album from Bandcamp here.
