Jawbreaker
Jawbreaker is an American punk rock band from San Francisco, California, United States. The band has its root in Los Angeles, CA, where Blake Schwarzenbach and Adam Pfahler were students at the exclusive private Crossroads High School. The band came together when they met Chris Bauermeister at New York University in 1988.
With Schwarzenbach on guitar and vocals, Bauermeister on bass, and Pfahler on drums, the band gained recognition in the late eighties Read Full BioJawbreaker is an American punk rock band from San Francisco, California, United States. The band has its root in Los Angeles, CA, where Blake Schwarzenbach and Adam Pfahler were students at the exclusive private Crossroads High School. The band came together when they met Chris Bauermeister at New York University in 1988.
With Schwarzenbach on guitar and vocals, Bauermeister on bass, and Pfahler on drums, the band gained recognition in the late eighties and early nineties for their melodic yet driven sound built on the foundation for Schwarzenbach's poignant, bleeding-heart lyrics and signature rasp.
The band's first full-length release Unfun was put out by Shredder in 1990. On this, the band stuck close to the sound coming out of their contemporaries in the nascent pop punk scene in their sound, with the exception of Bauermeister's prominent bass lines and Schwarzenbach's lyrics, at times walking the line of the melodramatic.
Unfun was followed by Bivouac on Tupelo/Communion in 1992. Bivouac proved thicker and darker - both thematically and melodically - yet served to elevate the band above a crowd of previously similar acts. This more ambitious release also artfully used pieces of found-audio, in what was becoming one of the band's signatures, weaving it in and out of the ten minute title track, "Bivouac."
Their third release, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, produced by the ubiquitous Steve Albini, unveiled a sparse pop-punk with more carefully crafted lyrics. This album also holds what has become arguably their best known song, "Boxcar."
Jawbreaker had seemed poised for critical and commercial success by the time of their fourth, and last album, Dear You. Despite a vigorous marketing push, Jawbreaker's album sales were anemic in the wake of a post-Green Day market, and was one of the causes leading to the end of the band's career in 1996.
The group recently reacquired the rights to Dear You and have successfully put the long out-of-print album back into circulation on Pfahler's label, Blackball Records.
The band's cult status as the definitive nineties proto-pop-punk band has grown since its breakup, and songs like "Kiss the Bottle" and "Jet Black" are referenced as influences by bands such as Sparta, Lucero, and Rocky Votolato. In 2003, a Jawbreaker tribute album, Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault was released on Dying Wish Records, and featured covers by 18 bands including Fall Out Boy, Nerf Herder, Sparta, and Face To Face.
Singer Blake Schwarzenbach went on to form the New York City-based band Jets to Brazil, who have also since broken up, and is now an adjunct English professor at Hunter College (CUNY). In the fall of 2008, he debuted his new band, Thorns of Life, formed with Aaron Cometbus of Crimpshrine and Pinhead Gunpowder on drums and ex-Gr'ups bassist Daniela Sea.
Drummer Adam Pfahler is currently drumming in San Francisco-based Whysall Lane, whose LP was released in 2006 on his own Blackball Records.
Bassist Chris Bauermeister has been playing in post-hardcore band Horace Pinker and pop-punk band Shorebirds, which was formed with Matt Canino, formerly of Latterman; Shorebirds split in the summer of 2008.
In 2021, Blake Schwarzenbach teamed up with Joyce Manor on a release.
In spite of the similar name, the band Jawbreaker Reunion is unrelated.
With Schwarzenbach on guitar and vocals, Bauermeister on bass, and Pfahler on drums, the band gained recognition in the late eighties Read Full BioJawbreaker is an American punk rock band from San Francisco, California, United States. The band has its root in Los Angeles, CA, where Blake Schwarzenbach and Adam Pfahler were students at the exclusive private Crossroads High School. The band came together when they met Chris Bauermeister at New York University in 1988.
With Schwarzenbach on guitar and vocals, Bauermeister on bass, and Pfahler on drums, the band gained recognition in the late eighties and early nineties for their melodic yet driven sound built on the foundation for Schwarzenbach's poignant, bleeding-heart lyrics and signature rasp.
The band's first full-length release Unfun was put out by Shredder in 1990. On this, the band stuck close to the sound coming out of their contemporaries in the nascent pop punk scene in their sound, with the exception of Bauermeister's prominent bass lines and Schwarzenbach's lyrics, at times walking the line of the melodramatic.
Unfun was followed by Bivouac on Tupelo/Communion in 1992. Bivouac proved thicker and darker - both thematically and melodically - yet served to elevate the band above a crowd of previously similar acts. This more ambitious release also artfully used pieces of found-audio, in what was becoming one of the band's signatures, weaving it in and out of the ten minute title track, "Bivouac."
Their third release, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, produced by the ubiquitous Steve Albini, unveiled a sparse pop-punk with more carefully crafted lyrics. This album also holds what has become arguably their best known song, "Boxcar."
Jawbreaker had seemed poised for critical and commercial success by the time of their fourth, and last album, Dear You. Despite a vigorous marketing push, Jawbreaker's album sales were anemic in the wake of a post-Green Day market, and was one of the causes leading to the end of the band's career in 1996.
The group recently reacquired the rights to Dear You and have successfully put the long out-of-print album back into circulation on Pfahler's label, Blackball Records.
The band's cult status as the definitive nineties proto-pop-punk band has grown since its breakup, and songs like "Kiss the Bottle" and "Jet Black" are referenced as influences by bands such as Sparta, Lucero, and Rocky Votolato. In 2003, a Jawbreaker tribute album, Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault was released on Dying Wish Records, and featured covers by 18 bands including Fall Out Boy, Nerf Herder, Sparta, and Face To Face.
Singer Blake Schwarzenbach went on to form the New York City-based band Jets to Brazil, who have also since broken up, and is now an adjunct English professor at Hunter College (CUNY). In the fall of 2008, he debuted his new band, Thorns of Life, formed with Aaron Cometbus of Crimpshrine and Pinhead Gunpowder on drums and ex-Gr'ups bassist Daniela Sea.
Drummer Adam Pfahler is currently drumming in San Francisco-based Whysall Lane, whose LP was released in 2006 on his own Blackball Records.
Bassist Chris Bauermeister has been playing in post-hardcore band Horace Pinker and pop-punk band Shorebirds, which was formed with Matt Canino, formerly of Latterman; Shorebirds split in the summer of 2008.
In 2021, Blake Schwarzenbach teamed up with Joyce Manor on a release.
In spite of the similar name, the band Jawbreaker Reunion is unrelated.
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Accident Prone
Jawbreaker Lyrics
What's the furthest place from here?
It hasn't been my day for a couple of years
What's a couple more?
And if I go, don't forget the one good thing I almost did
I learned your name without words
I used my eyes, not my hands
What's the closest you can come
To an almost total wreck
And still walk away, all limbs intact?
And when I go, you'll be there crying out, begging me
I won't hear
I'll just go fast into this night on broken legs
A near miss or a close call?
I keep a room at the hospital
I scratch my accidents into the wall
I couldn't wait to breathe your breath
I cut in line
I bled to death
I got to you, there was nothing left
What's the meanest you can be
To the one you claim to love
And still smile to your new found friends?
In the same confusing breath, you pull away and draw me in
I wanted you
You wanted more
I built this life and now it's mine
A near miss or a close call?
I keep a room at the hospital
I scratch my accidents into the wall
I couldn't wait to breathe your breath
I cut in line
I bled to death
I got to you, there was nothing left
A near miss or a close call?
I keep a room at the hospital
I scratch my accidents into the wall
I couldn't wait to breathe your breath
I cut in line
I bled to death
I got to you, there was nothing left
I got to you, there was nothing left
I got to you, there was nothing left
I got to you, there was nothing left
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach, Christopher Charles Wolfgang Bauermeister, Frederick Adam Pfahler
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
To comment on specific lyrics, highlight them
Mike Fogerty
For 18 years I’ve been trying to figure out how people consider “Dear You” Jawbreaker’s worst album. It’s their fucking masterpiece.
Jack Carraway
It's like Pinkerton; it took years for both albums to be seen as classics.
That Girl Carolyn
@Dave Anchovies Many of us thought that the change in Blake's voice was a creative choice to appease the masses. Was this an overreaction and an incorrect assumption? Of course it was. In hindsight. You have to remember at the time that 1) Blake said he'd never sign, and we took that to heart. 2) News didn't travel all that fast and it wasn't well known that the change in Blake's voice was a medical necessity, so our opinion of the change in vocals was directly tied to how we felt about the contradiction of signing with a major label. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of it was justified or that made any sense. I'm just saying... it was what it was... and it was more than anyone will ever be able to capture in a passing commentary about selling out in the 90's.
Dave Anchovies
this was the first one to get reissued and funny how its one of 2 considered their best. The singers raspy vocals cleaned up after a polyp was discovered and removed from his throat. you can change a lot in the studio with a slick producer, but not a human voice. They got shit for "selling out" by letting a major label pay them for the sacrifices of being your favorite band. indie bands seldom see anything but enough to justify spending months in a van and coming home hoping to find another job quickly. truth is, tshirt sales are the biggest financial boost to a band playing clubs, bouncing from small indie labels. then they started second guessing each other, arguing and broke up. instead of a follow up, ya got a live album. thanks.
Mike Fogerty
@That Girl Carolyn Damn, that was very well articulated. I fully respect and can very much appreciate your position. Bivouac is incredible as well. I truly wish I was a part of the late 80s, early 90s scene but I was about 8 years old haha. Did you watch the Jawbreaker documentary that came out a few years ago? Or even the East Bay Punk doc? I'm a fan of both.
That Girl Carolyn
That said... Accident Prone is one of my favorite Jawbreaker songs, period. But it took years for it to rise the ranks not because of the song itself, but because it was still attached to residual feelings from the first time I heard it (as any great song will do). I had to train my brain to flip the narrative.
The Fold
It hasn’t been my day, for a couple years, what’s a couple more?
Mago Koro
I've never met something that resonated with me so much as this song. I think of it often. I found it when I was 14 and I'm 21 now. Found true emo in the deepest and darkest parts of my life. I'm doing so much better now but sometimes I'll be walking through the grocery store and I hear that nine note strum. There's just something about the tone, about the way Blake sings the lyrics with such disdain, apathy.
ebins
@Mago Koro
Niiice. Duster - Letting Go and Loathe - Is it really you
are two great songs that also hit as hard as this one
projecta
the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy.