At Dawn

Cover of At Dawn

In April 2001 My Morning Jacket released second studio album on Darla Records. The album was named At Dawn and contains 15 tracks.

1. At Dawn – 3:49
2. Lowdown – 3:53
3. The Way That He Sings – 5:35
4. Death Is the Easy Way – 5:28
5. Hopefully – 5:55
6. Bermuda Highway – 3:19
7. Honest Man – 7:46
8. Xmas Curtain – 4:49
9. Just Because I Do – 2:55
10. If It Smashes Down – 5:28
11. I Needed It Most – 6:36
12. Phone Went West – 7:05
13. Strangulation! – 8:08
14. Untitled – 3:08

 The album features Jim James, Johnny Quaid, J. Glenn, Two Tone Tommy and Danny Cash. All songs are written by Jim James.


The first 2500 CD releases and the first 1000 vinyl 2LP came with a bonus CD containing 11 demo songs.

1. "Way That He Sings"
2. "Hopefully"
3. "Just Because I Do"
4. "Bermuda Highway"
5. "Lowdown"
6. "Honest Man"
7. "At Dawn"
8. "I Needed It Most"
9. "Lead Me Father"
10. "Phone Went West"
11. "Chills"

Recording
The album was recorded and mixed above at Above The Cadillac Studios, Shelbyville, KY except Chills, and If It Smashes Down which, according to the CD booklet was "recorded in waxwork museum in my basement" and Hidden Song #1 which was recorded by Chris Koltay at Ultrasuede.

"The band records its next album over a three-day weekend in the summer of 2000. The record remains … the best of what’s possible with a one-inch tape machine, pieced-together equipment and late nights spent making each other howl with laughter as much as creating music."

 - Tom Blankenship
(am New York interview, October 2010)

"We locked ourselves in for many days with all the necessary elements (lights, candles, Madonna’s Immaculate Collection, Dreamcast and cookies) and we just started cooking."

 - Jim James
(Philadelphia Citypaper interview, June 2001)

Sound/themes

"I love big, huge open sounds, such as vocals cut far away from the mic in a big room (i.e. Exile on Main Street ), and also huge drum sounds (i.e. Led Zeppelin). I just love atmosphere. I love hearing the rooms where the songs were recorded, chairs creaking, crickets and the like. (...) It feels like love and rhymes with childbirth. I think Darla’s music is all based loosely around the same beautiful feelings of pleasure and color. There is a black vibe that runs through it all, but it is also so very colorful."

- Jim James
(Philadelphia Citypaper interview, June 2001)

Influences


Critical reception

Other artists comments

Dave Grohl
In the August issue of Spin Magazine Dave Grohl mentions My Morning Jacket when asked about what inspires him. "It's when you hear an album that inspires you to write and play yourself. It's just all about the shameless fucking naked passion. Like the (...) Or the first time I heard My Morning Jacket's At Dawn - it still makes me cry."

At Dawn

At Dawn in the first track off 2001 album At Dawn.

 Lyrics from CD booklet
At dawn they ride again
They'll haul you out to the streets
They'll burn your papers and your empty trash cans
Beat this thought into your head
Saying over and over again:
"All your life is obscene...
Forget the papers, forget your musical dreams"
But that's when my knife rises
Their life ends and my life starts again


Length of album version: 3:49
Written by: Jim James
Also appears on:

In addition to the lyrics the following is written in the CD booklet:
Remember this when hope's unclear: it's the hard way up that feels the best.
We start this time with open ears...

Lowdown

Lowdown is the second track off 2001 album At Dawn.

Lyrics from CD booklet
Lowdown
Cheatin
Sho' don't need no repeatin
So love, dawg can't ye see?
That you never gotta fight with me

Hurtin
Beatin
Ain't no need for repeatin
So love, dawg can't ye see?
That ye never gotta bleed for me

Chancin
Glance in
Sho' nuff mood for romancin'
So love, dawg can't ye see?
That you only gotta dance with me

Lyrics from official website
Lowdown, cheatin, aint no need for repeatin,
So love, dawg, cant ye see?
That you never gotta fight with me
Hurtin. Beatin. Aint no need for repeatin,
So love dawg cant ye see, that you never gotta bleed for me
Chancing, glancing, sho nuff mood for romancing
so love dawg cant ye see that you only gotta dance with me

Length of album version: 3:53
Written by: Jim James
Also appears on:

Patrick Hallahan joins the band

2003 photo of the band, by Drew Goren

"He is our savior. We love him and intend on keeping him for a long time to come."

- Jim James
(Pitchfork interview, August 2002)

Patrick Hallahan
According to an interview with Drum Magazine Patrick Hallahan joined his first band in 7th grade, a band that also featured Jim James. Hallahan eventually joined other bands and in 1997 he started studying at the University Of Louisville, though he later ended up taking a break.

During this period of time childhood friend James was working on My Morning Jacket's debut album, The Tennessee Fire. Hallahan and James had kept in touch and according to the same Drum Magazine interview, Hallahan was one of the band's biggest fans, but nothing more, due to a pact the two had made earlier.

"Jim and I vowed never to be in a band together. We didn’t want that. Our friendship was too valuable."

- Patrick Hallahan
(Drum Magazine interview, August 2008)
However in 2001, one day after Hallahan had received an acceptance letter to an engineering program, James called saying that the band's current drummer Chris Guetig, was leaving the band, and James needed help.

"I said, ‘Oh God, I thought we weren’t going to be in a band together?’ It was really strange because I was such a fan and a friend. I felt like I was playing my friend’s music,I was playing in a My Morning Jacket cover band, but it was My Morning Jacket."

- Patrick Hallahan
(Drum Magazine interview, August 2008)
The band then began to work on 2003's It Still Moves and according to the previously mentioned Drum Magazine interview, Hallahan states that the experience was like putting on his favorite shirt.

"It was an easy transition. I knew everybody in the band then for so long, just walking into that situation was, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re in the band, this is too easy.’ I was playing that music that I had been listening to for so long. It was strange. Then again, nothing about this band is normal."

- Patrick Hallahan
(Drum Magazine interview, August 2008)

Bermuda Highway

Bermuda Highway is the 6th track off 2001 album At Dawn.

Lyrics from CD booklet
Sometimes I walk around town lookin at faces
Wonderin why their bodies go to silly places
Walking past the carpet mills
Looking in and taking stills
Your ass it draws me in like a Bermuda highway

Oh don't carve me out
Don't let your silly dreams fall in between
The crack of the bed and the wall

Two times I feel asleep in a dirty basement
Snoozin in cobwebs and the cement
Sometimes I wonder why that meek guy got all the fame
Maybe I'm to blame, for his short, bitter, fucked up life

Length of album version: 3:19
Written by: Jim James
Also appears on:

In addition to the lyrics the following is written in the CD booklet:
March on desperate friends!
March with me until the end!
We all can't fall in line
Some will lead and some will fall behind
It's not what lies when looking in your eyes
But the meat they find, when digging thru your spine!

Exclaim! interview (2001)

My Morning Jacket in Doornroosje, Nijmegen, The Netherlands 2000, photo by Riny van Eijk

In June 2001 Exclaim! published a questionnaire with Jim James, unknown interviewer, original interview can be found here.

Keywords: Jim James

Current fixations:

"Bag Lady" by Erykah Badu. Jimmy Rodgers the Singing Cowboy. Outkast.

Mind-altering work of art:

Amsterdam, Holland.

Most memorable or inspirational gig and why?

When we played at the Monte in Antwerp, Belguim, I played "Easy" by the Commodores and the crowd sang the "Ahh ahh ahh ahh" part. They sounded like fucking angels. It made my head want to explode with the life. They were so nice and gentle and their voices really did a number on me.

What has been your career high and low?

I think every time I pick up the guitar and play with the boys it is a fucking blessing. Every time someone tells me that they enjoy my music and that it means something, to me I have accomplished my mission. I try not to think about the lows. The highs make them disappear.

What should everyone shut up about?

Shitty music.

I would drop everything to play a benefit for:

Juvenile diabetes / cancer.

What trait do you like and dislike most about yourself?

My face.

What would make you kick someone out of your band and/or bed, and have you?

People change. Everyone knows that. I think when you and someone else get to the point that you cannot function together any more, it's time to move on. It's nothing personal. I have parted ways with many people who used to be good friends and it hurts. But life is just a never-ending series of moving on, rebuilding and destroying.

When I think of Canada I think:

About Terrance and Phillip.

What is your vital daily ritual?

Exercising my body and mind. Mmmm… bodies.

How do you spoil yourself?

I wrap myself in tinfoil and sprinkle powdered sugar and lemon juice on myself, then I get 50 of my closest friends and do the same to them. We all get in a big plastic bag and pretend we are lemon drop candies. Then one person is the "eater" and he or she "eats" every last one of us.

What was your most memorable day job?

I've had so many fucking day jobs, I can't remember half of them, but definitely Heine Bros. Coffee in Louisville, KY. I fucking love that place. It's like a big living breathing soap opera. It's fucking beautiful.

If I wasn't playing music I would be:

A garbage man, just like my cousin Johnny Quaid.

What is your greatest fear?

Watching "American Beauty" by myself. When the ending comes on after he is shot, it's so beautiful it hurts. It feels good to have someone there. I've never had to watch it alone – that scares me.

If you had a superpower, what would it be?

Invisibility.

What makes you want to take it off and get it on?

The Rev. Al Green's "I'm So Tired of Being Alone" and "Do Right Woman," the Flying Burrito Bros's version.

Music and sex: Is there a difference? Why?

No, the only difference is penises and guitars. Unless you are a drummer.

Strangest brush with celebrity:

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

Who would be your ideal dinner guest, living or dead, and what would you serve them?

Shannon Hoon from Blind Melon. He seemed like such a beautiful person, and he had probably one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard. He always makes me cry. When he died, no one gave a shit. I loved Kurt Cobain, but I think Shannon had more talent in his pinky, but no one declared him a martyr. Strange how that works.

What does your mom wish you were doing instead?

My mom is fucking awesome and totally supportive. I think she is happy with what I'm doing. But if I was a baseball player, I might have more money, but maybe more problems as well.

The Way That He Sings

The Way That He Sings is the third track off 2001 album At Dawn.

Lyrics from CD booklet
Why's it so strange when they say that the world's moving upwards
Why's it surreal when my hand feels it can't roll the dice?
Why's it so great just to wake every day
Alive and by your side
It's a mystery I guess
There's lots of things I can't find
It's not the way that you look
But your move that catches my eye

Why's it so soft when the cannons unload on the others?
Why're we so loud when we say it won't happen to us
Why does my mind blow to bits
Everytime they play that song?
It's just the way that he sings
Not the words that he says or the band
I'm in love with this soul
It's a meaning that I understand


Length of album version: 5:35
Written by: Jim James
Also appears on:
In addition to the lyrics the following is written in the CD booklet:
It's clear to me fuckey

Band quotes

"The Way That He Sings is just about all my favorite singers, really, just the fact of being in love with the way something is, rather than what it appears to be or is presented as. There is nothing more pure and beautiful than the human voice and oftentimes I just drift away listening to Roy [Orbison, Pitchfork assumes] or Neil [Young, Pitchfork assumes] sing a song, and it doesn't matter really what they're saying or they're playing. You know, it's all about the moment. And I feel the same way about love. I kind of mention that little rascal too from time to time; I guess it's inevitable. I mean just loving things for what they mean, not just what they seem to mean. Dig?"

- Jim James
(Pitchfork interview, August 2002)

"All my favorite singers, I could care less what they're singing about. It's that life force you feel from them, and I feel it the same in everything I love. You can get all the content hearing their voice, the quality of it, the age and the pain in it."

- Jim James
(Inquirer interview, September 2003)

Philadelphia Citypaper (2001)

On June 14th 2001 Philadelphia Citypaper published an interview with Jim James, done by Brian Howard. The original interview can be found here.

Keywords: Reverb, The sound, At Dawn

Dim the lights and throw At Dawn— the second album from Louisville, KY’s My Morning Jacket — on the stereo, and you’ll swear crooner Jim James and his bristly country/rock band are hunkered down in the room with you. Singer and guitarist James’ voice is gorgeously haunting, and the band’s endearingly lo-fi recordings engulf you in a way that makes the glitches and creaks sound so worthwhile.

"I love to sing in a world I’m comfortable in," explains the 22-year-old James via e-mail of his big honey-and-fire tenor. "I love big open rooms and lots and lots of reverb…. Reverb makes me feel like Roy Orbison, and when I feel like Roy Orbison I feel happy, though I know I’ll never even come close to him."

James, whose music feels like "Crying" on a rainy day, is closer than he gives himself credit for. His voice, like Orbison’s, echoes through empty halls and tired synapses. Each track on At Dawn (released on the independent Darla label) is a bald-faced, lovelorn lament of one kind or another, from the tenderly morbid "Death Is the Easy Way" to the dour holiday downer "Xmas Curtain" (which appeared previously on the band’s Christmas EP, My Morning Jacket Does Xmas Fiasco Style). The band is often compared (by some indie music types who couldn’t tell Hank Williams from his son) to current country posers like Will Oldham and Smog. "Personally, I don’t think the music we make sounds anything like these guys," says James. "I guess people are just desperate to compare."

For comparison’s sake, Neil Young and Orbison are better starting points and, as James puts it, "I guess we sound more like Galaxie 500 than Eminem."

Like the erstwhile Galaxie 500 (and their offshoot Damon & Naomi), My Morning Jacket wears a pervasive ambience born of an appreciation for a slowly strummed guitar paired with uncommon vocals. It’s a quality that allows the band to fit in quite nicely on the roster of Darla records, a Sacramento-based independent label which specializes in electronic and indie rock bands which share a certain sense of subtle sonic wonder.

"I love big, huge open sounds, such as vocals cut far away from the mic in a big room (i.e. Exile on Main Street ), and also huge drum sounds (i.e. Led Zeppelin)," explains James. "I just love atmosphere. I love hearing the rooms where the songs were recorded, chairs creaking, crickets and the like."

The band’s sound is, for lack of a better word, natural. "It feels like love and rhymes with childbirth," offers James, cryptically but lucidly, of his music. "I think Darla’s music is all based loosely around the same beautiful feelings of pleasure and color. There is a black vibe that runs through it all, but it is also so very colorful."

For the recording of At Dawn— a dark-purple, Sunday-morning hangover album if ever there were — James explains, "we locked ourselves in for many days with all the necessary elements (lights, candles, Madonna’s Immaculate Collection, Dreamcast and cookies) and we just started cooking."
The band is rounded out by James’ cousin Johnny Quaid on guitar, Two-Tone Tommy on bass, Danny Cash on keyboards and newcomer kc guetig on drums. My Morning Jacket began as a solo outlet for songs that didn’t fit with James’ old band Month of Sundays and evolved into the five-piece it is today. If you’re quick to purchase At Dawn, you’ll get a limited-edition bonus disc of spare demos James recorded in his bedroom.

The band’s aim, like their recording process, remains fairly simple. James has tired of Louisville’s reputation as a math-rock mecca (seminal post-rockers Slint hail from the city). "There was that time in the early ’90s when Slint sound-alike bands and hardcore were all the rage, but that is worlds away…. I get tired of hearing about the same old bands from ’90-’94. We’re just trying to bring rock ’n’ roll back to the table, plain and simple…. I’m not talking about coolie Mogwai rock and roll or trashy Jon Spencer/Nashville Pussy rock ’n’ roll, either. I’m talking about pure rock ’n’ roll with a heart that beats for the common man, I’m talking The Band and Led Zeppelin, not Smog and Will Oldham."