Jupiter Café - Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ) - Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ)

Arguably the first concept album by an Indian rock band, Jupiter Café reflected the angst of Bangalore, a city that was gaining notoriety as the back-office of the world. Suddenly, Bangalore was peopled by a punch-in punch-out tribe with an identity crisis. Even the city pondered a change of name. The pensioner’s paradise was history, the garden city’s parks had given way to parks of another kind – the glass-and-steel citadels of digital czars. Bangalore’s laidback pub culture had also transformed into a highly commercialized advertising lie, straying far from the musical roots around which it began. Burnout was driving frustrated IT workers to suicide. It was time to make an album that clasped these truths close to our hearts. The outcome: Jupiter Café. Ten stories. Ten songs. Strung with laughter, tears and irony. Slice of life, with extra cheese.

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Songs

01 - Brigade St. 1
02 - Brigade St. 2

Feet shuffle, shoulders brush
Eyes meet across the street
Six floors up, one street down
The band’s trying to keep the beat
This is where I find myself
My true identity
Lost in a crowd, searching for
Who I want to be
Playing hide and seek
With the strangers that I meet
We know without knowing
See without seeing
This is me I’m looking at
This is who they see
And tomorrow I’ll remember
Hey, have I seen this all before

* On Brigade Street
Brigade Street
Brigade Street
Don’t let it pass you by…

Bell bottoms, high heeled shoes
More than meets the eye
I’ve got my wheels I’ve got my style
I’m cruising down this aisle
This is where I lose myself
Nowhere left to hide
Lost in a crowd, searching for
Who I want to be
Playing hide and seek
With the strangers that I meet
We know without knowing
See without seeing
This is me I’m looking at
This is who they see
And tomorrow I’ll remember
Hey, have I seen this all before
03 - Wishing for Magic

There’s a hummingbird
Behind the bars of my eyes
Stuck on a sixth floor balcony
Wishing for magic, she flies
When everything’s so grey
Even my washed-out jeans have more to say

What’s up my sleeve
I’m just an ordinary Joe
Waiting for Godot
He’ll be here, tomorrow
When everything’s so grey
Even my washed-out jeans have more to say

It takes my breath away
How we never see
Beyond the cast-iron boundary
Of oxidizing memory
Wish me luck as I open the door
Today is gonna be something more
Or so I always say…

Tell me mister have-not
Barefoot in the park
How do you smile so much
When tomorrow’s so dark
You look at me and say
Brother can you spare a bite just for today

It takes my breath away
How we never see
Beyond the cast-iron boundary
Of oxidizing memory
Wish me luck as I open the door
Today is gonna be something more
Or so I always say…

The colours washing over me
Sometimes I fancy I can see
They’re not the illusions of a wannabe…
04 - State of Mine

Sparrows on a telephone wire
Making music on the sky
Sitting on a million conversations
Watching as the world goes by

Somebody lost a job
Somebody found a dog
She just hung up
Didn’t even say Good bye…

Shadows on the ground
Making funny pictures that follow me around
Growing bigger as the sun goes down
Telling all my secrets without a sound

Somebody got laid
Somebody got home late again
Don’t try to figure why
Cry if you have to cry

So much time, so much to do
Sure, you can subscribe to your point of view
Love is a game, money’s a shame, no one to blame
The web has my name
Have you staked your claim
New York is fine but feel free to choose
Your state of mind…

Lost my stupid job
Found another dog
Another time another place
It’s just another day
Don’t let life pass me by
Got to get home I’ve got to get home
Before it’s too late

Play the game
Enjoy the shame
Don’t mess don’t mess
With this state of mine, state of mine
Don’t mess don’t mess With this state of mine, state of mine
05 - Respectable

He’s a respectable man
On a chair beside the window
Writing a respectable hand
But that he don’t know

Punched in, punched out,
For many moons
Even the echoes of a younger fire
Lose themselves at noon

A name, a number
Sign on the dotted line
Take home a fading dream
Bits of paper for your time

I know you know the feeling
Can’t get it out of your head
An unregarded underling
Wishing for breakfast in bed

He’s a respectable man
On his back the world is built
And a bullet stopped the voice
That sang of all the lonely people

Stranger on the local train
Member of that impassive tribe
Here to there and back again
Not much to describe

A name, a number
Sign on the dotted line
Take home a fading dream
Bits of paper for your time

I know you know the feeling
Can’t get it out of your head
An unregarded underling
Wishing for breakfast in bed

Wearing that smile
Permitted Class II preserve
Wait for a while
Get what you deserve

I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know

The feeling.
06 - Look At Me

Look, go ahead, look at me
Black hair, brown eyes, brown man
Never mind the goatee
Oh yes, I’m from the exotic east,
The heat and the dust and the burden of the beast
The smells, the spices and the mystery
Of people just trying, just trying to be

I speak four tongues,
Hell, here we all do
And we find the space
To think in yours too

Oh yes, I’m cool and mean
And I play that rock n’ roll
I don’t use gasoline
I get around on petrol

The Empire went back and Skywalker came
But Asha still sells on forty-five fame
Then John, Paul, George and the other guy
Crossed the Universe and got real high

Don’t you see it yet?
Don’t you see it yet?

I like my toast in the morning
But you can’t take away my
Full meals by the wayside
I even like Chainese – you know the mean chow
But mama tears me down when I eat the holy cow

It’s still an odd situation
Everytime I realize
That I’m foolish with pounds
When my brothers are not even penny-wise

But I’ve got my karmic law and all
I accept so much so easy
I’m a rampant intellectual
When I’m with my glass of bubbly

Don’t you see it yet?
Don’t you see it yet?
07 - Getting There

How does it feel now
When the only thing
You’ve made up is your mind…
Powder, powder my nose,
Got so little time
Look up and there it goes…

The shirt is on my back, with my pack
The shoe is on the other foot
Don’t want to miss, don’t want to miss
This train of thought

* I’m going away
Getting lost but I’m getting there, getting there
I’m going away
I’m a fool but I am gone
You can take it out of my pay

There may be just
Another place another time
Another point of view
Forget the upper crust
I’m in between
A plebian scene

I’m getting sucked into a niche
With all the other nouveau riche
So tired
So uninspired
Do you, do you kapische?

*

Half the joy is half the way
Half the joy is half the way
Half the joy is half the way
Half the joy is half the way

*
08 - Drunk

I’m drunk
Sated, filled up, right up to here
And oh, all right, it feels so good…
Some more
I’ll lap it up, I have no fear
Do you really think I should
Taste the music magic
Deep, sweet, head spin
And it would be tragic if I didn’t let you in…

* Too much of a good thing
Too much of a good thing
Can’t get enough
Got to watch myself, watch myself
Walk the line
Don’t fly too high

Sometimes I’m just a monkey
It’s a really swinging time
And I don’t care, don’t care if you mind
Sometimes I get lucky
And I don’t even lose my mind
It’s better, better this way
Taste the music magic
Deep, Sweet, head spin
And it would be tragic if I didn’t let you in

*

Burn my wings like Icarus
I’m so drunk, I’m so drunk

I’m drunk
I’m high
I’m stoned
I’m done.
09 - Sanity in Gravity

Oh my head, it’s a funny place
Strange things, happenings inside
And every time I feed my face
Something deep below, it cries

Who am I what am I doing here
Why do I believe what I believe
Who are all these people, can I make them disappear
Can I stop the world and leave

* Am I crazy or am I wise
Crack the mystery and I’m surprised

Here we go, let me try
Unzip my thoughts for you
Analyze, sermonize, patronize
That’s what you love to do

Who am I what am I doing here
Why do I believe what I believe
Who are all these people, can I make them disappear
Can I stop the world and leave

*

Who am I what am I doing here
Why do I believe what I believe
Who are all these people, can I make them disappear
Can I stop the world and leave

*
10 - Without Wings

Seemed like just a regular day
With all the regular pain
Standing on a street corner
Look up at the concrete sky
Took the stairs one by one by one
Slow, steady, to lose the one-way race
Don’t want a box to take me anywhere anymore

One hundred floors One hundred years
I’m on top of the jungle
Feel the wind pluck my thoughts
Out from my tangled hair

* Looking down
Life becomes so small
My tiny troubles in my tiny mind
We’re going for the fall
Looking down
Deified by altitude
I feel the power in my blood
I’m doing what I should…

Flying without wings
And yet I feel
Like a feather
Falling through a hundred stories
One hundred tales I’ll never tell
Hear the screams through the windows
Of my eyes
I do not make a sound

See the frightened people
Afraid of me
Afraid of me
Who would be free

*
Every god has his day
Mine’s about to end
I know there is no night
Funny, I don’t see the light

People getting bigger
At least I stopped the traffic
Open-mouthed at the flying man
They don’t believe their eyes

Crashed into the world
The same way I was born…
11 - Jupiter Cafe

You must have heard the story
Of Jack and the Beanstalk
The seeds of his destiny
An exchange of livestock
We climbed it up, yes, everyday
With the treasure ran away
And we never left the Jupiter Café.

It was more than just a gingerbread house
You could go away but never leave
Reality crumbled like a cookie
And left its pieces at the door
We flew to beetelgeuse everyday
Not worried about the hell to pay
And we never left the Jupiter Café.

Spinning round the solar system
Smiling moons just roll on by
Not for the world, we would miss them
After all, it’s just the mind’s eye
Would you come in with me today
Can’t promise you more than what I say
You may never want to leave the Jupiter Café.

Tie and dye dreams, they fade away
But you can taste the colours sweeter
Now we’re older, not much wiser
Longing for the Jupiter Café…