"Amy, I" by Jack's Mannequin, Tuesday, November 29, 2022 (repost)
Following the traumatic experience of surviving cancer between Jack's Mannequin's first album (Everything in Transit) and second album (The Glass Passenger), lead singer Andrew McMahon decided to write about the people and things that he appreciated the most. The singer talks about deciding on the name for the project quite early in the album's production process in the podcast Meet the Musician. People and Things topped the Alternative albums chart, but the lead single, "My Thoughts Racing," only peaked at #43 on the Rock Digital Sales chart. The album was released in October of 2011, but by February of 2012, McMahon started publicly discussing dropping the band's name. "I foresee an end to the usage of that name. I don’t know that it’s doing for me what it used to," he told Lehigh Valley Music. To McMahon, he wanted to start fresh. Healthy, married, and becoming a father, the concept of Jack that McMahon had created in his early 20s was less relevant to the singer-songwriter. Thus, he started releasing music under Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.
ANOTHER LONG WINTER, TRYING TO FIGHT THIS FREEZE. I listened to People and Things during my last semester of college, during my hellish student teaching experience. It was my album for the car, mainly driving home to North Carolina through the Tennessee mountains during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Jack's Mannequin's first record was basically piano pop-punk. Their second album was a more refined piano-pop sound. But People and Things felt like it was influenced by '70s piano rock. Songs like "Amelia Jean" and "Amy, I" are a beautiful marriage between piano and guitar. Three of the songs on People were from songwriting sessions with Relient K's Matt Thiessen. The Californian McMahon was spending time in Nashville in the wintertime. Staying at Thiessen's house after a night of drinking, he got out of bed, his bare feet touching the cold, creaky wooden floor. He looked outside and the opening line came to him: "Snow on the ground in Tennessee." The line stuck with him all day as he and Theissen began writing about a relationship that had grown cold.
I CAN HEAR YOUR BARE FEET ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR. A Tennessee winter is cold, especially to a Southern Californian. While I've never spent any time in Nashville, Chattanooga got pretty damn cold. And I'm from New York. There's not always much snow, but the wind from the open spaces leave a bitter feeling in the bones. I don't remember feeling that cold in New York even when there was five feet of snow on the ground. Just keep the fire burning. Just keep the path to the woodshed plowed. Just dress in snowpants, boots, and several layers. In the South, we don't do that. A leather jacket and a scarf will do, maybe a beanie. The lyrics of "Amy, I" made me think about something tragic happening, when I first listened to the lyrics. Did Amy die by falling into the lake? McMahon, however, writes this song as a metaphor for coldness between two people. The title "Amy, I" is a trailing off expression. Is the speaker sorry? What is he trying to say? What is preventing him from saying it? On December 1, the winter is just around the corner. There's a lot of uncertainty I'm facing with the coming year, and we all need something or someone to hold onto. We need someone to hold onto us. Otherwise, we plunge into lake that's cracking under our feet.
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