July 6, 2014

what’s beautiful is broken

This Wednesday night, we’ve booked Jeffrey Foucault at the Ivywild School in Colorado Springs (with Patrick Dethlefs opening). I don’t think it would be an overstatement to say that this song below is one of my favorites of the last good number of years. Please join us.

“Jeffrey Foucault, sings stark, literate songs that are as wide open as the landscape of his native Midwest.” — The New Yorker

If you’re not in Colorado, just listen and love:

Northbound 35 – Jeffrey Foucault

Northbound 35
through the iron hills
under infidel skies
It’s two hundred miles to drive
..you won’t be home

I saw an elsebound train
on the overpass
in the driving rain
Every ticket costs the same
for where you can’t go

Mustang horses, champagne glasses
anything frail – anything wild
It’s the price of living motion
what’s beautiful is broken
and grace is just the measure of a fall

So I rolled into your town
past the smokestacks
and the ore docks down
off of Main the sky spun around
with her diamonds on fire

And we fought all night and we danced
in your kitchen
you were as much in my hands
as water or darkness or nothing
could ever be held

Mustang horses, champagne glasses
anything frail – anything wild
It’s the price of living motion
what’s beautiful is broken
and grace is just the measure of a fall

It’s just flashes that we own
little snapshots
made of breath and of bone
and out on the darkling plain alone
they light up the sky

And it’s 51 and driving south
ain’t it funny
how things’ll turn out
I never even kissed you on the mouth
When we said goodbye

Mustang horses, champagne glasses
anything frail – anything wild
It’s the price of living motion
what’s beautiful is broken

and grace is just the measure of a fall


BONUS: Man alive do I love this R.E.M. cover he did with his former band Redbird.

You Are The Everything (R.E.M.) – Redbird

Also, I posted a songwriter session back in 2008 that Jeffrey Foucault did with Peter Mulvey and Chris Smither – that’s still uploaded here if you want to take a listen (wonderful cover of Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain,” to boot).

Foucault / Mulvey / Smither Songwriter Session


Tickets for Wednesday’s show are $10, available here.

Tagged with .

3 Comments

  • I wish I could make it!! You won’t be disappointed, I saw him in Nottingham UK last year. Excellent show. Looking forward to hearing the show.

    John — July 7, 2014 @ 3:03 pm

  • Looking forward to the show. I love his music and both the covers you noted here (You Are the Everything and Buckets of Rain). I would add his cover of John Prine’s Mexican Home as just an absolutely beautiful cover. I thought Josh Ritter did it well, but Jeffrey Foucault’s version even blows that away.

    luke — July 8, 2014 @ 9:28 am

  • Don’t forget Ships, the Greg Brown cover with Redbird. And. . . . Cross of Flowers, one of my favorites, Americans in Corduroy, Mesa, Arizona. . . . . just to mention a few. Unfortunately, I won’t make the show as it is a bit too long a drive from Santa Cruz, CA.

    Beto Byram — July 8, 2014 @ 6:14 pm

Comments RSS

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Subscribe to this tasty feed.
I tweet things. It's amazing.

Bio Pic Name: Heather Browne
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
Giving context to the torrent since 2005.

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."
—Hunter S. Thompson

Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.

View all Interviews → View all Shows I've Seen →