Jawbreaker is an American punk rock band from San Francisco, California, Un… Read Full Bio ↴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 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.

I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both
Jawbreaker Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

A week inside,
I think I'm starting to show.
I told myself to keep myself in line.
Should we get married or
Just go on killing each other?
I don't think I hate you enough
To commit you to me.
Happy all the time.

It's all we ever do.
Steady in decline.
It's all we ever do.
I'm sorry but it's true.
How can I save you when I couldn't save a dime?
I want to call you and tell you that I'm a fan. All my friends know better
But I can't quite hear them.
Still for the life of me
I can't imagine our home.
Good things, that's all I want.
All I want for you.
Hold me.
Set me free.
It's all I want from you.
It's sad and it's so true.
If you can't be the life of the party,
You'll be the death of everyone.
All I want is a life without parties.
Want you as one.
Watch this pot and it is sure to boil.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking,
"Boy or a girl?"
Kiss me on the teeth.
It's all that we can do.
Punch me.
Wake me up.

This lullaby is blue.
Lie and say we're through.

Overall Meaning

The entirety of "I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both" is characterized by its dramatic irony in which the song's main character, a young college-aged individual who is struggling with a toxic relationship, expresses himself with powerful, ambivalent emotions. He has been in isolation for a week and is starting to lose his focus. His ambivalence is revealed when he questions whether he and his lover should marry or keep "killing each other," indicating that their relationship is both passionate and explosive. The singer continues to lament the state of the relationship, acknowledging that he does not hate his partner sufficiently to force him into commitment. The line "Happy all the time./It's all we ever do./Steady in decline./It's all we ever do" is probably one of the most striking lyrics in the song, in which the two lovers are depicted as constantly considering whether to continue on the same track or to check out and go their separate ways. They are clinging to the idea that they can save their relationship, but all they do is argue, and they do not seem to know how to break the pattern.

The song has a chorus that is comprised of the singer's yearning for physical connection and liberation from his emotional turmoil. He pleads with his partner to "Hold me./Set me free./It's all I want from you" and "Kiss me on the teeth./It's all that we can do.". Yet, in the end, the singer gives up on keeping the relationship alive and decides "to lie and say we're through," indicating that the only way they can be together is to pretend they are apart. Jawbreaker's "I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both" is a poignant portrayal of a strained relationship that is defined by ambiguity, passion, and a lack of resolution.

Line by Line Meaning

A week inside,
It's been a week that we've been stuck inside our disagreement

I think I'm starting to show.
I can't hide my emotions and feelings about this anymore

I told myself to keep myself in line.
I've been reminding myself not to let my emotions get the best of me

Should we get married or Just go on killing each other?
We can't seem to get along, maybe it'd be better if we just ended this

I don't think I hate you enough To commit you to me.
As much as I dislike you, I still don't want to tie you to me for the rest of our lives

Happy all the time.
We pretend in front of others that everything is okay

It's all we ever do.
But that's just a façade, because the only thing we do is fight

Steady in decline.
Our relationship is slowly falling apart

It's all we ever do.
And we can't seem to stop it

I'm sorry but it's true.
I hate to admit it, but it's the reality of the situation

How can I save you when I couldn't save a dime?
I can't save our relationship, and I can't even save myself financially

I want to call you and tell you that I'm a fan. All my friends know better But I can't quite hear them.
I want to try and save our relationship, but my friends have warned me to not do that

Still for the life of me I can't imagine our home.
I can't even picture a future with us together

Good things, that's all I want. All I want for you.
All I want is for things to be good between us

Hold me. Set me free. It's all I want from you.
I want us to hold onto each other and also give each other the space we need

It's sad and it's so true.
It's a melancholic reality that we have to accept

If you can't be the life of the party, You'll be the death of everyone.
If you can't keep the spark alive in our relationship, it'll eventually come to an end

All I want is a life without parties. Want you as one.
I don't want to party, I just want to spend the rest of my life with you

Watch this pot and it is sure to boil.
Our relationship is like a pot on the stove, if we keep ignoring it, it's going to boil over and ruin everything

Sometimes I catch myself thinking, 'Boy or a girl?'
I wonder if things would be different between us if one of us had a different gender

Kiss me on the teeth. It's all that we can do.
We've come to a point where this relationship has hurt us so much that kissing hurts

Punch me. Wake me up. This lullaby is blue.
I'd rather feel the physical pain than the emotional agony of this relationship

Lie and say we're through.
Sometimes I wish we could just pretend to be over and move on with our lives

Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS

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