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.

Incomplete
Jawbreaker Lyrics

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We hear your one hand clapping.
It's music to our ears.
You don't like the way we sound.
We don't like the way you hear.

Sorry we ain't hard enough to piss your parents off.
Hatred's not our policy.
We tried that game and lost.

You keep saying you're just killing time.
Be careful,
You're killing some of mine.

I don't want it.
Keep it to yourself.
You can't help it,
So put it on a shelf.
Well hate makes hate.
It percolates.

You're brewing up a storm.
This song's the head of your coffee spoon,
Mirroring your form.
The distortion's pretty accurate.

I'd say your head's about that size.
Your vision's been so stricken by those beady little eyes.
And all the broken nursery rhymes.
Old hopes cracked open by cynical minds.
We'll try to work them out sometime.

I wouldn't want to be so cool in a world about to freeze.
You're so hard you're brittle.
You shatter easily.
And no one's there to pick you up

Cause you fucked with all your friends.
Lying there like an unpieced puzzle nobody can mend.

Overall Meaning

The song "Incomplete" by Jawbreaker is a critique of narrow-mindedness and intolerance. The opening lines, "We hear your one hand clapping. It's music to our ears," suggests that the person being addressed is alone in their opinions, and their applause is like the sound of one hand clapping - essentially silence. The next two lines, "You don't like the way we sound. We don't like the way you hear," imply that the person has a limited perspective and cannot appreciate the band's music.

Throughout the song, the band tries to point out that hatred is not the solution to any problem, and it only promotes more hate. They apologize for not being hard enough to anger some parents, but they refuse to use hatred as their policy. They even warn the other person that, while they may believe they are just "killing time," they are in fact, "killing some of mine." This suggests that the other person's narrow-mindedness and intolerance are not only holding them back, but they are affecting other people around them as well.

The song lyrics also criticize the other person's brittle and inflexible nature. By being too "cool" and too hard, they have alienated themselves from their friends, who are no longer willing to pick them up. The last line, "Lying there like an unpieced puzzle nobody can mend," paints them as someone who has shattered beyond repair, like a broken puzzle that nobody can put together again.

Line by Line Meaning

We hear your one hand clapping.
We are aware of your disapproval of our music.

It's music to our ears.
Your disapproval doesn't bother us, in fact, we're almost amused by it.

You don't like the way we sound.
You dislike the style and sound of our music.

We don't like the way you hear.
We dislike the way you interpret and understand our music.

Sorry we ain't hard enough to piss your parents off.
We apologize for not being enough to provoke or anger your parents with our music.

Hatred's not our policy.
We do not believe in promoting hate, especially not through our music.

We tried that game and lost.
We experimented with promoting hate, but it didn't work out for us.

You keep saying you're just killing time.
You claim to be wasting time by listening to our music.

Be careful, You're killing some of mine.
Your negative attitude and comments are affecting my time and enjoyment of making music.

I don't want it.
I don't want your negativity and criticism.

Keep it to yourself.
Please don't share your negativity and criticism with me.

You can't help it, So put it on a shelf.
I understand that you can't help but feel negatively towards our music, but please keep it to yourself.

Well hate makes hate.
Hate breeds more hate and negativity.

It percolates.
It spreads and affects others.

You're brewing up a storm.
You're creating a negative and hostile environment.

This song's the head of your coffee spoon, Mirroring your form.
This song reflects and magnifies your negativity and hostility.

The distortion's pretty accurate.
The way we distort the music is an accurate reflection of the distortion in your own perception.

I'd say your head's about that size.
You have a narrow and limited perspective.

Your vision's been so stricken by those beady little eyes.
Your perception and understanding have been corrupted by narrow-mindedness.

And all the broken nursery rhymes.
Your understanding of the world and life has been built on distorted, failed, and inaccurate stories.

Old hopes cracked open by cynical minds.
Your past dreams have been crushed and replaced with negative and hopeless beliefs.

We'll try to work them out sometime.
We will attempt to understand and help you move past your negative beliefs in the future.

I wouldn't want to be so cool in a world about to freeze.
I would not want to be so emotionally detached and uninvolved in a world facing impending disaster.

You're so hard you're brittle.
You may appear tough and strong, but you are actually easily broken and fragile.

You shatter easily.
You are easily pushed to your emotional limits and can break down quickly.

And no one's there to pick you up Cause you fucked with all your friends.
No one will be there to support or help you because you have treated your loved ones poorly.

Lying there like an unpieced puzzle nobody can mend.
You will be left alone to deal with your emotional issues and no one will be able to help or fix you.

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: DEREK WILLIAM DICK, DOUG MILLETT, ELIZABETH ANTWI

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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