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.
Do You Still Hate Me?
Jawbreaker Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
All about your disapproval.
Still I remember
the way I used to move you.
I wrote you a letter. I heard it just upset you.
Why don't you tell me? How can I do this better?
Are you out there? Do you hear me?
Can I call you? Do you still hate me?
Are we fighting? Is it over?
Are we writing? We're getting older.
But we're acting younger.
We should be smarter. It seems we're getting dumber.
I have a picture of you and me in Brooklyn.
On a porch, it was raining.
Hey, I remember that day.
And I miss you.
The lyrics to Jawbreaker's "Do You Still Hate Me?" speak to the complexities of relationships and the difficulty that comes with change. In the song, the singer is reflecting on a past relationship and wondering if the other person still holds resentment towards them. Despite being aware of the other person's disapproval, the singer still holds onto memories of how they used to connect and move each other.
The lyrics also touch on the struggle to communicate effectively in relationships. The singer wrote a letter to the other person, but it only upset them further, leading to the question of how to make things right. The repetition of the lines "Are we talking? Are we fighting? Is it over?" underscores the uncertainty of the situation and suggests a sense of desperation to find a way forward.
Overall, "Do You Still Hate Me?" is a song about the complexities of relationships and the ways in which they can change over time. The lyrics capture the difficulty of trying to repair a damaged relationship and the struggle to move on, even when memories of happier times linger.
Line by Line Meaning
Been hearing about you.
I've been hearing opinions about you from people around me.
All about your disapproval.
People have been telling me how disapproving you are of me.
Still I remember
the way I used to move you.
Even though you show disapproval now, I still remember how I used to be able to excite and impress you.
I wrote you a letter. I heard it just upset you.
I tried to communicate with you through a letter, but it seems that it only upset you more.
Why don't you tell me? How can I do this better?
I want to know what I can do to make things better between us, but I need you to communicate with me.
Are you out there? Do you hear me?
I'm trying to reach out to you, but I need to know if you're willing to listen.
Can I call you? Do you still hate me?
I want to know if there's any chance for us to talk and reconcile, despite your current feelings toward me.
Are we talking?
Are we currently communicating with each other?
Are we fighting? Is it over?
Are we currently in conflict with each other, or is our relationship beyond repair?
Are we writing? We're getting older.
Are we still writing to each other, even though time has passed and we're both getting older?
But we're acting younger.
We should be smarter. It seems we're getting dumber.
Despite our age, we're still making immature decisions and not learning from our mistakes.
I have a picture of you and me in Brooklyn.
On a porch, it was raining.
Hey, I remember that day.
I have a fond memory of us together in the past, and I still hold onto that memory.
And I miss you.
I still have feelings for you and miss what we had.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
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