As frontman for the Los Angeles-based rock band Angels Fall, Jorgensen will have plenty of opportunity to help his listeners create their own memories when Epic Records releases Yesterday’s Gone. Produced by Mike Flynn (The Fray, Augustana) and Warren Huart, and co-produced by Jorgensen, Yesterday’s Gone is a showcase for Jorgensen’s rich, emotionally transparent voice, melodic gifts, and keen lyrical insights about love and the human condition on songs like first single “Drunk Enough,” “Call On Me,” “Good Bye To You,” and the title track. “I really like writing about love,” Jorgensen says. “Everybody falls in and out of love. Everybody loves their lover and hates their lover. There's a lot to say. And I’m drawn to writing about love in context of the past. Every song serves as a bit of closure for each situation in my life. I try to experience as much as possible. I've lived a crazy life in the name of music.”
Jorgensen was born in a lighthouse in Eureka, California, while his parents were members of a commune called Lighthouse Ranch. A year and a half after his birth, his parents left and raised Jorgensen between Denver and Colorado Springs. Jorgensen’s first musical memory is of trying to play his father’s guitar at the age of five. “I had gotten my hands on this guitar he had sitting out, and he came home and found me,” Jorgensen says. “I could barely even hold the thing, but I was trying to pluck the strings.” His father taught him a few chords and Jorgensen took it from there, taking inspiration from the classical music and classic rock his mother favored, artists like Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin.
It was a dream Jorgensen had about Joplin at age nine that awakened his realization that he wanted to be a professional musician. “I was taking a nap while watching the film Woodstock and had fallen asleep right before Janis Joplin's performance,” he recalls. “In my dream, I was standing in the crowd looking up at the stage, and Janis was up there singing. She stepped down off the stage and walked up to me, circling around me with her finger on my shoulder while singing to me. When I woke up, that was the moment I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
When Jorgensen was 19, a freak accident, in which lightning struck the apartment building he was in while he was playing guitar, nearly derailed his ambitions by frying the tendons and tips of his fingers. “That’s when I started singing and really listening to melodies and lyrics,” he says, “because I wanted to keep creating music. Even if my hands weren’t working, I had to find a way to do it because it was the one thing in my life that I loved more than anything. It’s the one thing that gives me peace and happiness.”
In 2004, Jorgensen quit his job at Guitar Center in Colorado Springs, packed his clothes and guitar into his car, and moved to Los Angeles where he took odd jobs as a waiter and a mover before landing a gig working security at The House of Blues in Hollywood. Two years in, he got to speaking to a co-worker whose brother turned out to be a music manager. The co-worker suggested that Jorgensen send his brother a demo of his songs, which Jorgensen did, sending 50 songs to Isaac Heymann and Michael Goldberg at 108 Management, who loved what they heard and asked him for more material. “I put my nose to the grindstone and did nothing but write for two months,” Jorgensen says. “I was living in a little apartment and had built a tiny studio between the hallway and the bathroom. I turned out another 20 songs, including ‘Angel,’ ‘Goodbye To You,’ and ‘Yesterday's Gone,’ and sent them off. Those were the songs that got me signed to Sony.”
After recording Yesterday’s Gone over two months in the Fall of 2010, Angels Fall played their first live show the following April at the Gibson Guitar Showroom in Los Angeles for the staff of motorcycle maker Harley Davidson — a very special concert for Jorgensen who has ridden every single day since buying and rebuilding an ’80s-era Honda Shadow after moving to L.A. “I love the freedom of being on a motorcycle,” he says. “I’ve got a close group of guys out here who have ended up becoming my adopted brothers through riding motorcycles; we started a club called the Whiskey Boys.” The Whiskey Boys, who appear in the video for “Drunk Enough,” ride bikes that Harley Davidson lent for the shoot, including the Cross Bones cruiser that Jorgensen rides in the video. “Harley Davidson has been really supportive,” he says. “Bill Davidson took me out for a ride and gave me a lot of props for what I’m doing with my life, which felt really good to hear,” Jorgensen says.
In June, Angels Fall hit the road for their maiden tour with Seether for a string of dates in the South and Midwest and played to an audience of 15,000 for the final show. “That night went so quickly,” he says. “We hit the last note and I was watching the crowd. People were screaming and cheering. I looked over at Billy and Ben Jindra, my bass player who has been my friend since I moved to L.A., and they were grinning from ear to ear. We threw our hands up in the air, said ‘Thank you!’ and that was it. I was like, ‘This is it. I'm home.’”
Unsaid
Angels Fall Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And I don't think I could just take it
I can't pretend that I don't know
I guess it goes without saying
There's nothing really left worth saven
I lost you so long ago
It's all between the lines
This is the secret you can't keep
So just go
Fade into the night
And leave me broken
Shattered by the words we left unspoken
Oh baby I know in the end
That some things are better left unsaid
Some things are better left unsaid
The hardest part of this goodbye
Is knowing how hard that we tried
When all the moments fade away
Silents cuts like a knife
Souvenirs for a life time
We're just pictures in a frame
Tears bleed until they dry
I've died a thousand times
I still taste your memory
So just go
Fade into the night
And leave me broken
Shapen by the words we left unspoken
And the life I used to know just stopped breathen
(i want to know)
Lost all my control to someone's cave in
I don't want to know
So just go
Fade into the night
And leave me broken
Shapen by the words we left unspoken
Walk away cause I don't wanna know it
Fade into the night
And leave me broken
Oh baby I know in the end
That somethings are better left unsaid
Left unsaid
The song "Unsaid" by Angels Fall is a heart-wrenching ballad that portrays the pain of a failed relationship. The lyrics of the song talk about the difficulty of communicating and the aftermath of not saying what's on the mind.
The song opens with the singer admitting that they are incapable of expressing themselves, and even if they could, they wouldn't want to hear the truth. The singer realizes that their relationship has been over for a long time now, but they have been ignoring the signs. The words that remain unsaid between the two have made the situation worse.
The chorus emphasizes that some things are better left unsaid. The couple tried hard to hold on to their relationship, but in the end, it was not enough. The singer does not want to know what went wrong or what the other person is feeling. They urge the other person to fade into the night and leave them alone to deal with the pain. The silence between the couple is cutting them apart, and they are just pictures in a frame of the life they used to know.
Line by Line Meaning
You don't know how to say it
You're struggling to express something to me
And I don't think I could just take it
I'm afraid that what you need to say will be too painful for me to hear
I can't pretend that I don't know
I can sense that there's something you're keeping from me
I guess it goes without saying
It's something that's already understood between us without needing to be spoken
There's nothing really left worth saving
Our relationship has been damaged beyond repair
I lost you so long ago
Our connection has been broken for a while now
It's all between the lines
The unspoken words and messages are what truly matter
I see it in your eyes
I can read your emotions and intentions through your facial expressions
This is the secret you can't keep
The thing that you're holding back is too big to keep hidden forever
So just go
Leave me and this situation behind
Fade into the night
Disappear from my life
And leave me broken
I'll be left to deal with the aftermath on my own
Shattered by the words we left unspoken
The silence between us has caused damage that cannot be undone
Oh baby I know in the end
I have a feeling that eventually we'll both understand why things ended this way
That some things are better left unsaid
Certain things are best left unspoken, for the sake of everyone involved
The hardest part of this goodbye
Saying goodbye is always difficult, but this feels especially painful
Is knowing how hard that we tried
We put effort into this relationship, but ultimately it wasn't enough
When all the moments fade away
Meanwhile, memories of what we once had are slowly starting to fade
Silents cuts like a knife
The silence between us is hurting both of us deeply
Souvenirs for a life time
Our memories together will last a lifetime
We're just pictures in a frame
We had a happy moment in our lives, but it's just one snapshot in time
Tears bleed until they dry
My heartbreak and sadness won't go away overnight
I've died a thousand times
The pain is overwhelming, and it feels like it's never going to end
I still taste your memory
Reminders of you are still present in my life
And the life I used to know just stopped breathing
Our relationship falling apart caused my former life to collapse around me
Lost all my control to someone's cave in
I've been forced to give up everything I knew because of your actions
I don't want to know
Knowing the truth will only hurt me more than I already am
Walk away cause I don't wanna know it
I'm begging you to walk away from this situation
Left unsaid
The unspoken words between us will remain that way
Contributed by Alice D. Suggest a correction in the comments below.