When I was a kid, I don’t remember when, my family got a dog around christmastime. We ended up naming him Dickens, he was a mix between a schnauzer and a chihuahua. We were tight. The little guy and I were friends for a long time, and I was lucky enough to be there to comfort him in some of his scary moments. We had brought Dickens to my grandparents place one time, not realizing he was the size of a chew toy next to my grandma’s dogs. One of her dogs, Babe, decided to bite Dickens and punctured all the way through his side. We were near the animal hospital and he was okay, but I think I cried more that day than most in my little life to that point.
Dickens was full of energy and would always want to run in front of cars in the street. We tried everything to train him to stay out of the road on the highway we lived on, but one day he ran out and got hit by a driver.
He didn’t die by the force of the woman’s van crushing down on him, but we knew we had to put him down. We took him out back and I watched my dad bash his little head with a shovel, this was before my parents turned into gun nuts, after all.
By the time we lost Dickens, I was in middle school and had known little him for a few years, probably the most time I’d been around an animal to that point. I knew where his favorite spot in the yard was, to run around the trees or lay in the shade. I know where he would bury the bones we’d give him after cooking birds or pork or what have you. I know where the bones were buried. When it was time to bury him, we put him in the soil of his favorite tree. I know where the bones are buried. I’ve been wanting to see him again, and it gives me little comfort to know where he is but not be able to see him again.
EP will be out in a little over a week. We are playing a show at the nest 10 days later. I wrote these songs over a year ago and don’t feel as connected to them as I did playing them live at the time. I wanted a title for the EP that acknowledges the past and recognizes the need for rebuilding. A lot of these were written as I was thinking through (and then going through) a fairly rough breakup, so they don’t super reflect the way I feel lately. But whatever, right? That’s where the need to rebuild comes in. As my intrusive thoughts turn to digging up the carcass of a creature I loved over a decade ago, I thought it was fitting to let the title mourn the times I was going through when I wrote these songs.
The dog was hit by a car in the street but we had to go finish the job.
I know where the bones are buried.
I’m really excited for what we have coming next and I’m really proud of the way this tape turned out. Please enjoy this first run of songs and stream Sick while you’re at it.
3/10/2025 Ur girl JB
☆Joy Buzzer 