A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THIS ALBUM:

See, I had this group of songs I wanted to take into Studio515 and record...

Songs that were near and dear to me, but songs I'd been avoiding recording for awhile because…I just had a bad feeling. 
I smelled trouble on the wind with this bunch. 

Sometimes you have songs that are easy to record. 
They don't make trouble, they don't throw tantrums, they clean their rooms, and eat their vegetables. 
These were not those songs. 
These suckers fought me every step of the way. 
And I know why. 
Now. 
NOW I know why. 
It was because I was trying to make them go against their very natures. 
I was trying to get these songs to work together as a team, to be of the same mind, to get in line, put on a uniform, and do what I told them. 
No dice. 

It was fairly early on in the recording process I realized that this whole thing was going sideways. 
These songs were just not going to get with the program. 
Well, who could blame 'em? Who wants to wash behind their ears, brush their teeth, wipe their feet?

Forget it. 
And what were my options? Take the belt to them? Make ‘em sit in the corner? Hold a mouth full of black pepper for ten minutes? Wash their mouths out with soap? 
Wouldn't have done any good anyway…not with this gang. 
Something about their eyes.

 
So I said, screw it, here's a bucket of red paint, some goose feathers, maple syrup, crayons, mud, a bag of flour…go wreck everything...ruin my life, you fucking demons. 
And I let them run loose and wild. It was ugly. It was beautiful. It was. 

And when the smoke cleared, there they stood. 
Each as different from each other as they could be. 
Each came out unique in its own way, irrespective of what I wanted.

And I just had to go with it. 

What can you do with brats like that? 
Alright then...go on, and be off with you. Call your mother once in awhile, maybe send a postcard…let us know if you need any money. 

Thematically (if I may be allowed to use such a lofty term), there are a lot of troubled characters here.

A lot of issues. 
Schizophrenics, obsessives, paranoids, and hopeless romantics headed down the wrong road. 
Tempted hearts, broken hearts, longing hearts, concrete hearts, a couple of ghosts, a murder, some bones, rotten old oranges, supermodels, for sale signs, lonely rooms, bad actors, surrender, denial, vanity, and finally the high pitch, whine, and pop of a flashbulb.
Photo shoot? Crime scene? Who knows? 
Maybe both. 

So yeah, this was a difficult one, no doubt. Hence the title.

I was tripped up from the get-go.