From the recording True True Love
“Here be a literary songwriter of the first rank. A major songwriter. Thanks for making music that still makes reviewing albums worth it.” - Robert Christgau, The Dean of American Rock Critics, Noisey (Vice)
“I can’t remember the last time I said yes to a song out loud in its first three seconds. In the instant when I realized that Krueger … was something different. You believe him, you want to be there. He sounds like he’s been all around the world without ever leaving home.” -Greil Marcus Rolling Stone
Rich Krueger is an interesting and generous guy who has something to tell you if you are willing to listen, something that might even trouble you, but it will never be ordinary.
Krueger jumped into the spotlight in 2017, after releasing his first album, Life Ain’t That Long to worldwide critical acclaim, and non-commercial Triple A radio play around the world. He was a finalist in the Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition in 2017 and 2018, winning in 2018. The 15-song follow up NOWThen, featuring Gary Lucas (Cap’n Beefheart), Robbie Fulks, Peter Stampfel, John Fulbright, Erik Frandsen (The Colbert Report), Casey McDonogh (NRBQ), and Jim Becker (Iron & Wine), was lauded internationally. Both albums made the top 15 of Robert Christgau’s 2019 Dean’s List (#6 and #14). His follow-up single in 2019 Charlie Guitar reached the top of Billboard Digital Charts
True True Love the single is a loving tribute to the marriage of two people who run with an outsider crowd, whom no one would ever expect to do something as conventional as marry. As the song says…”Tell me, where do you think your life begins…”
True True Love is from the upcoming re-release of the nine song (including Charlie Guitar & The One You Love) CD ‘The Troth Sessions’ coming out on Spotify and everywhere on Friday August 28.
Lyrics
True True Love
To Vernon Tonges and Stacey Earley on their wedding
Gather all ye myrtles brown*
Watch all the queer town folk dance ‘round and ‘round
There’s confetti in the air
Loosen up your underwear
Put on some Uncle Peter**.
Plant your lawn chair near the sound.
Listen to a few delightful lies
As the hummingbirds and the horseflies try and guess each others size
The dried flowers and fresh weeds in that bouquet you tossed into the trees
What kind of shadows do you throw when you’re under moon and stars
I’ve never seen this man so happy
Or this woman brought so near to tears
She can’t stop laughing. Can you blame her? It’s been years.
Tell me, where do you think your life begins?
Listen up young feller can’t you feel it on your skin
The strongest, the strangest smell in all the world that I’ve heard tell
Is true true Love
True true love
He will be her sword and she his shield
They’ll sew Queen’s Anne lace together along the Elysian Fields
They’ll take the time to watch it grow
From down here it looks a lot like snow
They’ll stare into each other’s eyes until this winter dies
She’ll lay down with him and make angels
He will piss a heart into the snow
Children learn to doubt there’s springtime if desert winter’s all they know
You can take your stupid little smirk
You can shove it up your ass, you lost and lonely cynical jerk
‘Cause the sweetest , the deepest smell
The purest water from the well
Is true true love
It’s true true, true true love
*Milton' Lycidas
**Peter Stampfel