The quiet Junker

Enough praise can't be heaped on the songwriting of David Junker, bass player and namesake of my old alternative country band the Junkers. The typical Dave Junker-penned Junkers song had a patina of cheerfulness that masked deeply troubling, often death-obsessed themes. A good example is a tune by him that actually never made it out of the practice room, "Embalmed." It went: "Embalmed in the image of life, embalmed for a reasonable price." Staggering.

Yet there can be disarming tenderness and wistfulness in his songs, as in what is perhaps the most subtly mysterious Dave Junker song, and my favorite one, "Pretty Cups and Saucers" from our 2003 album Live Characters Nightly:

When we first met we talked over a coffee
You baked for me, and I brought you love
Our kitchen table held us like a wedding bed
Now I go to sleep alone and underfed

I bring his songs up because this morning I found myself humming another Dave Junker classic, "Can't Stop the Bleeding," from the debut Junkers album Hunker Down. That's the song whose acidly funny lyrics feature perhaps the greatest line of the entire alt-country genre: "I hope that my corpse don't scare your boyfriend."

The Junkers - Pretty Cups and Saucers

The Junkers - Can't Stop the Bleeding