Long Run the Fugitives

by Tyler Key

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Wally we're still holdin' on

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Bonus tracks: "Battallion" drum machine demo and "Shoot the Porchlight Out" Early Version.

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Classic Townes, Vol. 1, Wild Azaleas and Other Tall Tales, Lemonade, How to Lose, Sweat, Savannah (Here I Come), cabin fever, Local Support, and 5 more. , and , .
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1.	Running My Life 01:38
2.	Lucky Man 04:18	buy track
3.	Ordinary Guy 05:13
4.	Hole to the End of the World Talkin' Blues 03:09
5.	Happy Birthday Sad Whiteboy Nation 03:50
6.	Young Once 04:20	buy track
7.	Blue Windows '98 04:39	buy track
8.	Willowbrook 05:23	buy track
9.	Finish What I Started (Ars[e] Poetica) 02:47
10.	Penelope (Hold On) 05:17

about

I’m working a deadend job in a college town, on the losing side of 25, and rock and roll is dead, but right now, staring at this decade-old laptop, I’m the most proud I’ve ever been of a collection of songs.

Long Run the Fugitives is the fifth or sixth version of this project, which originated sometime a few years ago as a song cycle about the Fugitive Poets—most recognizable among those being Robert Penn Warren—those hardscrabble formalists who wanted to bring a new era to the south and to verse. This didn’t really pan out. I recorded everything direct to cassette and used a drum machine to keep me straight, but being the miser that I am, I didn’t have the hardware to make it sound good. I scrapped it all, except one song I wrote about Applebee’s.

The record you’re listening (or thinking about listening) to turned into a record about aging. It’s a political record. Aging is political. I’ve been very tired for quite some time of these old politics, the run-and-shoot, the flash-in-the-pan, the dead-on-arrival ratings game. But the vitriol fizzles into complacency after a while: a process I’ve tried to fight. Hopefully it shows.

But the political necessitates humor. It’s engrained into our national identity. Without the occasional chuckle we’d all decide it a better fate to take a handful of Ambien and drift gently into that good-night. An idol of mine, John Prine, inspired a song or two on this record, and I’ve been trying to keep things less somber than I feel totally comfortable with because of him and songs like “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven.” As much as I’m good at being a sad bastard, spinning a yarn about a man digging a hole straight through the planet with a handmedown shovel was something I felt very natural doing (See track 4 “Hole to the End of the World Talkin’ Blues”).

There’s not a shortage of the somber tunes here, though. You bought a Tyler Key record. It’s not going to feel good and happy and the stars aren’t going to align for anybody no-way-no-how in any of these songs. Longtime supporters may notice a redux of a song called “Willowbrook” from my first record, First Terminus, only because I felt like I could do that song more justice. It’s the saddest and simplest song I ever endeavored to write. Also the discerning fan will note the long overdue appearance of “Penelope,” one of my personal favorites from the song cache. I wrote it for a girl to prove to her I could best Conor Oberst, but you should be the judge of that.

Anyway, somehow I became 27 and white and male and I had to reckon with that via music. That about sums it up for the essay portion of this test. Please submit your scantron to the attendant at the desk. Goodbye. And thank you for the flowers. They will go nicely with these curtains.

credits

released June 9, 2017

Tyler Key plays all the instruments, sings all the melodies, takes credit for all the mess-ups.

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about

Tyler Key Athens, Georgia

Athens, GA songwriter. Loud folk rock. This American Life as heard through a megaphone. Proud to be a bitter southerner.

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