A Quick Trip Home
A Quick Trip Home

I’m proud of this record and I’m excited for everyone to hear it.  It’s my story, it’s our stories, it’s the great things about the Hoosier state and it’s the bad things that affect us no different than anyone else.  No place is good or bad, but it is my place.  To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, where you were is gone, where you thought you were going never existed in the first place.  If you can get a grip on these notions, the rest of life is a lot easier to stomach.  You are where you are, enjoy it the best you can and know you don’t have to stay there.  


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Thoughts, UpdateJeremy Climerjournal, travel, thoughts, Indiana
Under-Appreciated Songs of the 1990s
Under-Appreciated Songs of the 1990s

Lush appeared in my newsfeed this morning and I just thought, “Man, people don’t know this band like they should.”  So, I made a (very) incomplete list of great songs that people may have forgotten about from the 90s.  I just let Apple Music’s suggestions and my pinball machine of a brain take me wherever they wanted to.

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ListJeremy Climer90s, list, Great Songs
"Ted Sweatt" - Tim Carroll
"Ted Sweatt" - Tim Carroll

I haven’t asked Tim Carroll if he meant “Ted Sweatt” as an anti-war song, but it absolutely meets my high standards of a protest song.  As a songwriter myself, I’d prefer not to know what he meant because everything you need is in the song and you, the listener, can decide whether this is just a tribute to a man from the same Indiana county as Tim, or whether there’s something more. Personally, I think this ranks up there with “Copperhead Road” on the list of great songs with social messages. 

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Indiana Music EssaysJeremy ClimerIndiana, Protest Song, Tim Carroll
Nebraska & Indiana
Nebraska & Indiana

The other night we watched the Springsteen biopic, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. I wasn’t prepared for it.  I thought we’d be watching a biopic of Bruce making my favorite record of his, but what I saw hit way too close to home for me.  That’s not to say it isn’t good, it is, and I highly recommend it, but, it made me realize that Indiana is closer to Nebraska than I intended it to be.

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Stories Behind the SongsJeremy ClimerBruce Springsteen, Nebraska, Indiana
What Are You Willing to Lose?
What Are You Willing to Lose?

Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, if I write something, it’s because I need to hear it.  Whether that’s a song, a social media post, or whatever, I’m not putting things out into the world as if I’m some kind of wise guru, I’m simply saying things that are on my mind.  And the decision to make those thoughts public revolve around the idea that if I need to hear these things, then maybe someone else does too.

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ThoughtsJeremy ClimerArt, success, fame, social media, attitude
Songs I Wish I Would Have Written, Vol. 1
Songs I Wish I Would Have Written, Vol. 1

A quick note before I get into it: while some of these are from big artists and big records, I tried to avoid low hanging fruit.  Yes, I would have loved to have written “November Rain” and gotten the paycheck that’s come with it over the last 30 years, but I wanted to shine a light on some songs that don’t get as much attention.  So, this is not my “best songs of all time list”, but they are songs so good, that it burns me I didn’t get to write.

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ListJeremy ClimerSongs I Wish I Had Written, Great Songs, Songwriting
On the Edge of the Shadow
On the Edge of the Shadow

I often think about how uncomfortable I am all the time.  I begin to wish I had some kind of community or clique to fit into, some place to belong where I’d no longer feel so uncomfortable.  Then I realize that, not only will this never happen, but I don’t want it to happen.  It would change me in such a fundamental way that I would no longer recognize myself if it happened.  You see, there are a lot of people in the world who want to be an outsider, or that who market themselves as outsiders, but they’re not.  If you’re truly an outsider, it’s a lonely and uncomfortable place to be, and if there’s anything the average human doesn’t want to be it’s lonely and uncomfortable. 

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ThoughtsJeremy Climeroutsider, darkness, light, art, Eddie Murphy, human behavior
A Lament & A Note of Encouragement
A Lament & A Note of Encouragement

I’ve started so many blog posts over the last few weeks, only to leave them half done because I get discouraged about it feels like I’m beating a dead horse.  When it comes to the music industry, there are others you can watch (Rick Beato) or read (John Strohm) who are much better positioned and equipped to talk than me.  And those are just two examples, there are many more.  I do like breaking down albums and concepts and putting them into writing, but that takes a different brain power than the musician brain power.  So, on that note, my book is also on pause.  I’m still listening to those Indiana artists, but the podcasts and interviews and research are on pause, I don’t have the bandwidth.  


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ThoughtsJeremy Climerlament, encouragement, work