Music: Jeffrey Foucault

When a man sings a song about Mesa, AZ how can I not love him?

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I came across this Mesa, Arizona song a few months ago via my brother, and I've been hooked ever since. Folk music, guitar, slightly raspy vocals, my beautiful desert hometown...well, neighboring hometown anyway...what's not to love! Some other favorites by Mr. Foucault include Heart to the Husk, Northbound 35, Passerines, Tea and Tobacco....and um, several others. I'm absolving myself of any further responsibility to narrow it down. Too many.

Plus, I simply can't handle the bio on his Facebook page:

Jeffrey Foucault grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. His father played a plywood guitar and his mother liked to sing. Winter Sundays were for church or ice fishing, which are not so different when you think about it. He went to college and dropped out, took a job on a fruit farm and started writing songs about a girl from Iowa. He finished school, roofed houses, drove a snowplow, and home-schooled the son of the local bar owner in exchange for beer. He cut his first album in the winter of 2000.

Dear J. Foucault, come perform in the Bay Area soon, please and thank you. California is quite nice in the winter. And all other seasons.

And just to mix things up, I'm going to skip posting a video of any of the above songs (though I encourage you to click on any link above and let your little ears feast) and post lyrics from a different song of his instead. Because man....MAN...I love these words. And if there are two things I'm all about in this world, it's good words.......and great corduroy. (No seriously, favorite fabric.)

Americans in Corduroy

We pushed back at JFK

And watched our country fall away

Two lovers chasing hours into the dark

Who blacked their boots

And locked the doors

And now for richer and for poorer

Go vagabond and wild as a spark

It was a civilized affair

You wore flowers in your hair

And your Mother's dress

So white against your skin

The stars of pale blue

Above the morning found a new

And nameless country

Where no one had ever been

We raced the valleys down

Through the sleepy little towns

As blind as any traveler you could meet

They took us as we came

No one even asked our names

Two Americans in corduroys

Kissing in the middle of the street

Back home behind closed doors

Where the bread and circus roars

They turn the volume up

And pull the shade

But on the cobbles in the square

People laugh and smoke and stare

And no one looks to me like they're afraid

At home the trees are turning

Red and gold the leaves are burning

Ruined apples fall

Too heavy and too sweet

But right here the birds are calling

The early stars are falling

For Americans in corduroys

Kissing in the middle of the street

Trading evening for midday

We touched down at JFK

And our country rose to meet us in the air

With all its beauty and its lust

Its diamond teeth and heart of dust

That beats inside us

Though we travel anywhere