back to
Keeled Scales
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Thieves

by Alex Dupree

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Pressed on bone-colored vinyl, limited to 1000 copies. Includes download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Thieves via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $22 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD comes in eco-wallet.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Thieves via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    7 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

1.
Toronto Reel 03:30
The longed-for snow and the memory of snow they fall together. I’m tumbling down St. Lawrence way, been coming here forever. Ol’ Johnny Depp three stories tall shines bold as you or me. “I am the outlaw William Blake. Do you know my poetry?” With a New York girl you can’t go wrong. What she asks is not so unusual. If she loves me well amen to that, and if she’s using me, well then I’m useful. So fare thee well tornado spring bed and fare thee well space heater. I’m glowing in the neon sign of a tarot and palm reader…
2.
The Seer 03:35
The light goes on. Miss Annie Jackson is laying out the table for you special, and when her eyes go lost, that’s the future coming across. Her parlor’s full of rich and poor as equal. She makes you tea, and the room starts spinning. And you thought the blood inside you was a myth! You say woah what is this stuff? She says it’s obvious you’re in love, let’s you and me just figure out who with. Are you looking for the angel who could save you from the silence? Pretty much. Is that you Annie? Girl I hate to see you going such a long way for a little kindness. Into the dark night of satisfaction they rode together desperate to pretend that the night could last all day (the whole rock and roll cliché). Two candles going crazy in the wind. Are you looking for the angel who could save you from the silence? Pretty much. Is that you Annie? Girl I hate to see you going such a long way for a little kindness. Way down fifty miles south of Dallas…
3.
Can’t think of a time when your love was true. Can’t think of one kind word that you said. But I got on a plane because you asked me to with a suitcase full of contraband. We met in Istanbul at Taksim square. I thought the plan was suicide: to shake down one of the billionaires at a cafe in broad daylight. But I put my jacket on, and I did my part. Security was swift, and they slammed me to the car. But your whereabouts, I kept them hidden in my heart. Fake diamonds, false powers I gave you. In prison, I did fifteen years, always dreaming of my reward. Then I worked a boat back to the gulf where I heard that you had been holding court in the Spanish moss and the neon haze. From the pool you met my eyes, and by the proposition in your gaze it’s clear you don’t even recognize me. And I remembered at once every promise I had kept while you played you were king of the kingdom of death in a palace you built out of nothing except the fake diamonds, the false powers I gave you. Like branches in a hurricane that fall in disbelief, I came inside and lay across your bed filled with a terrible sense of relief. And the moon flashed in my prison blade as it found your heart of stone, And the look you gave me was pure surprise as we rolled out into the open, And I knelt to put my weight against you where you bleed as the rain goes on to make a mirror of the street. And it’s weird, so many crowding at the hour of your defeat, and not one of them gonna come down here and save you. Fake diamonds, false powers I gave you.
4.
This desire’s all wrong (we knew that much all along), but we could pretend for a while that I didn’t cry for you deep in the night, that you didn’t want me in your arms. Then you undid your coat like a hallucination. You kissed me, and it felt like a curse. See my woman at home, it’s a bad situation. I wish you had got to me first. Your husband was making a movie in Spain, and we walked hand in hand through the park. The autumn had triggered in you, we decided, fondness for a fearless remark. And I’m beginning to see the years wasted on misery like a judgment that you could have reversed. You raise up your drink and say it’s just one of those things. I wish you had got to me first. Now I’m listening above for the whispers of love like one of its true believers (but with miles left to go, and they’re starting to show). I wish you had got to me first.
5.
The Cave 05:35
I woke up in a cave. At least I think I woke up in a cave, it was too dark to tell. Pressed against the stone my head felt like it wanted to explode. Oh, you think maybe we went a little far?

The air is shadows going by. I never said I wanted to die, just to be where the dead are. Devotion is in my hands. I went on on all fours to look for passage, some kind of trapdoor. To turn my body into love I brought it to the void. I guess I thought it had to be destroyed. How American. I’m shaking in my trance like a planet in a telescope. I know you must be looking for me. The way a planet in a telescope is shaking because it is in your hands. Devotion is in my hands.
6.
We took what we could carry when the holy city fell. The road across the prairie was curving like a shell. I had to try and sell my memories to strangers. Found a diner, Ferguson was all over the news. I let my eyes adjust, and two men covered in tattoos came and led me by the sleeve down to the basement. They had a body stashed in there, slumped over a desk. The room was full of whispers ancient and grotesque, and when they lifted up his head, I saw he looked just like me. I jumped. A crowd had gathered. Suddenly I felt absurd. Someone said go on man tell him how it works. The boss is dead, and if the word gets out we’re finished. So they took my prints and promised me a good time in St Louis if I’d stay and be his body double. And before I knew it, the past was something small, without importance, but glowing brighter and brighter the more it goes away, like a scratch in the lens of the glassy new day. New day, new divider. So I changed my hair and found a suit and put on his gold watch, got photographed all over town with a little entourage, and it worked for a while. No one was suspicious. His widow played along. We’d go to parties and we’d kiss, and a fantasy rose faintly like a mountain in the distance, and so new to me, I thought that it was yours. Didn’t last for long though. His obituary ran. His rivals at the funeral were studying their hands. Their cars wrapped like a snake around our building that glows brighter and brighter the more it goes away. A scratch in the lens of the glassy new day. New day, new divider. She had to be in mourning as befitting for a queen. There was nothing left for me to do except not be seen, so I’m back on the road a second time. Oh am I like a buoy that was tethered in the flood by your sweet devotion when that tether is cut? What is breaking through the surface, what is rising in my haywire, hotwire heart? Missouri moon, Missouri moon.
7.
You can make the sun blush over the sand, you can make the moon stand still above the dam. You can make the stars fall out of the sky, but if you make me love you, I’m gonna make you mine. You can make me search for some magic fix, or you can make me work one of your daddy’s oil rigs. You can make me crazy with your ever-wandering eye, but if you make me love you, I’m gonna make you mine. You can make a little mist rise above the lake, you can make the chef bring us free dinner by mistake. You can make me bleed for your amusement, babe that’s fine, but if you make me love you, I’m gonna make you mine. Make you into a signal I alone receive, blinking in the shadow of my heart. Make you into a spirit I alone believe, until even the words of kindness that you offer me will be my words. You can make the night as cozy as a bed, you can make a drink to un-suffocate my head. You can make your arms into a soft, familiar sign, but if you make me love you, I’m gonna make you mine.
8.
With a team of professionals keeping me drunk, with a wilderness caught on the tip of my tongue, I want you, or I don’t want nothing. There’s people out there making love’s pilgrimage, but I’ll bet you their friends are probably all rich. I want you or I don’t want nothing. I thought that pain had purified my will, and being immune I went on, I felt justified in my low country swoon. Coulda shown you a good time, she said. But I doubt it. I lost my pride, and I can’t see a damn thing without it. I want you, or I don’t want nothing.
9.
Lawman 03:41
Lawman, I’m afraid you just walked in here at the wrong time. My old man’s gun has never been fired, but there’s a first time. And this could be it. This could be the first time. Oh Lawman, well you look to be a lot younger than me, and I’d hate to shoot a baby. You got a long way to go before you’re old and slow, and it could be… it could be a good time if you’d change your mind. See I’m tired and sweet from making love, and it’s just too late, you’ll have to wait. Bring your business around here in the morning. See I’ve heard your line, and you’ve heard mine, and I’m just too tired to take a side. Bring your business around here in the morning. Don’t you want to be easy? Well look there, let some of the things that you see go on by. Or you can burn them into your brain, just go on home. Don’t you see the children? They’re just like you. They want everything to be fine, but they let it slide. And the laughing lets you know that smiling breaks the rules. Lawman, you know it could be me. And if you had your way, we’d all be down under the face of a clock that’s just too old to be wound. And you can see now, the old hands won’t move around. One way or the other, fool card brother, this could be… this could be the first time.
10.
Fortunado 04:42
God of the dead, god of the weak, out in the snow and the cold winds they say Fortunado was lucky one time, and Patrick has traveled with him ever since. Scraping together rent hustling pool, they took on some Texans and won by mistake. When out of the darkness materialized the city police who’d been lying in wait. He thought he’d be braver in a moment like this, but soon as the cops opened fire on the crowd, and he heard Patrick cry I think I’ve been hit, Fortunado just ran and went back underground. He moved to a cabin in some lonely place. His face in the mirror was growing unkind. It became his obsession to relive that day, working it over and over in his mind and without realizing it he was preparing the way for a miracle: shook in a feverish chill, he stood in delirium up in his bed and was sent across time to relive it for real. There was the teargas that they poured in the street. There was the drumming of their shields and black armor. There was the bullet that he prayed for to meet. There was his chance to go down as a martyr. Oh the past can be different anytime you look. God could be rewriting something in his book. But what kind of mercy did Fortunado get? Almost no one remembers having seen him alive. I combed through the city in a cold sweat and found his name on a tombstone from 2005. I still can’t explain it — all the unspoken years, or what Fortunado became in that moment. A color of light could just bring him to tears, but guilt was a heavy door that he opened.

about

Dupree got his musical start in Austin, Texas, and his voice still has some Heartworn Highways-era color to it. It’s a quality meant for the stories told on Thieves.

These are stories about the Trump years, a span which coincided with Dupree’s own attempt to rebuild a life after divorce. It was a time for the painful ending of illusions, about himself and about the country. He was living between artist residencies, sublets, and storage units along I-10, and long hours spent on the highway soon found a form in the long lines of traditional folk ballads. Slowly, new songs began to emerge.

Producer Michael Krassner’s experience arranging for film and his deep attention to songcraft set a perfect stage for Dupree’s lyrical storytelling. Old-Hollywood string crescendos and delicate acoustic phrases pass in and out of focus behind the vocals, a lush backdrop for the songs’ stark dialogue.

A wide array of traditional instruments (harmonica, mandolin, violin, piano, pedal steel, and jaw harp, to name a few) fill out these guitar songs. It’s these thoughtful arrangements paired with Dupree’s aptitude for songwriting that makes for such a special record.

Thieves is the story of starting over. It’s a sturdy songwriter’s album with heady, heavy folk and country flourishes. It’s about coming to terms with the uncanny patterns of your life, the strange repetitions you can’t escape.

credits

released July 15, 2022

TORONTO REEL

Alex Dupree: acoustic guitar, vocals
Max Knouse: 12 string guitar, jaw harp
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Josh Hill: violin
Michael Krassner: electric guitar
Laraine Kaizer-Viazovstev: violins and string arrangement

THE SEER

Alex Dupree: acoustic guitar, vocals
Max Knouse: 12 string guitar
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Stephen Hodges: drums
Wally Boudway: percussion, slide guitar
Tim Rutili: additional vocals
Whitney Mower: additional vocals

FAKE DIAMONDS, FALSE POWERS

Alex Dupree: acoustic guitar, vocals
Max Knouse: electric guitar
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Stephen Hodges: drums
Michael Krassner: piano
Matt Matherne: mandolin
Laraine Kaizer-Viazovstev: violins and string arrangement
Wally Boudway: percussion
Whitney Mower: additional vocals

WISH YOU HAD GOT TO ME FIRST

Alex Dupree: requinto guitar, vocals, harmonica
Max Knouse: 12 string guitar
Wil Hendricks: bass
Laraine Kaizer-Viazovstev: violins and string arrangement

THE CAVE

Alex Dupree: electric guitar, vocals, wurlitzer
Max Knouse: electric guitar
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Stephen Hodges: drums
Michael Krassner: harmonica
Tim Rutili: additional vocals

MISSOURI MOON

Alex Dupree: piano, vocals, classical guitar
Tiffanie Lanmon: drums
Matthew Holmes: percussion
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Michael Krassner: guitar
Laraine Kaizer-Viazovstev: violins and string arrangement
Whitney Mower: additional vocals

I’M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE

Alex Dupree: acoustic guitar, vocals
Tiffanie Lanmon: drums
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Buck Meek: electric guitar
Bill McCullough: pedal steel

LOW COUNTRY BLUES

Alex Dupree: electric guitar, vocals
Max Knouse: electric guitar
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Stephen Hodges: drums
Michael Krassner: piano
Bill McCullough: pedal steel

LAWMAN

Alex Dupree: acoustic guitar, vocals
Max Knouse: guitar
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Stephen Hodges: drums
Josh Hill: violin
Tim Rutili: additional vocals

FORTUNADO

Alex Dupree: acoustic guitar, vocals
Max Knouse: guitar
Aaron Michael Stern: bass
Stephen Hodges: drums
Matt Matherne: mandolin
Wally Boudway: percussion
Aisha Burns: additional vocals
Josh Hill: violin

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Alex Dupree Austin, Texas

Music for people who like words / words for people who like music.

contact / help

Contact Alex Dupree

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Alex Dupree, you may also like: