Jeffrey Lewis Lyrics Trivia Quiz

Answer: shaking tongues

"Life" was a song on "The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane and Other Favourites", Jeff's first big release, on Rough Trade Records in 2001.

Jeff's other career is as a comic book artist and the cover picture of this album is made up of cut up pictures from his comics. During his live performances he sometimes brings out "low-budget videos" for some of his songs which are A3 pads of paper with his paintings illustrating the song. He then turns the pages as he sings.

Answer: Don't be with people you don't trust

This was the title track from Jeff's first album.

You'd think anyone who listened to the lyrics of this song would be pretty clear that Jeff isn't a fan of LSD but apparently there's plenty of people who weren't paying attention and assumed that he was an acid-head. For his next album, just to make it perfectly clear, he wrote a song called "We Don't Want No LSD Tonight".

Answer: As half full... of nothingness

Hmmm... that's a tough one. "Seattle" is my favourite Jeff Lewis song. It's another from the first album.

Like his fellow New Yorker Woody Allen, Jeff puts a lot of introspective self-analysis into his work and mixes it with wit and insight. Jeff was born in 1975 so he'd have been in his early to mid twenties when he wrote this song about wondering what to do with his life.

Answer: making out and eating cookies

Aw, poor Jeff. I guess most people can relate to this.

This album was released on Rough Trade in 2003. "Back When I Was 4" starts off as though it's looking back over Jeff's life from his precocious childhood through teenage angst to starting to get some success with his songs and comic books. It doesn't stop at 27 though. It keeps on going through "back when I was 37", "back when I was 63", "back when I was 87", etc.

The lyrics get happier later on and if things do work out like in this song then he'll have a pretty good life around the age of 50 or 60. 128 isn't a bad year either.

Answer: Someone's gotta do the dishes

From the song "Don't Let the Record Label Take You Out to Lunch" on the second album. Jeff has now released four albums on Rough Trade so I guess he does get along with his record label okay. I don't know whether they've ever bought him lunch though.

Answer: my brain is my heart 's umbrella

Another Jeffrey Lewis song, "Together We Form Jeff" has two versions of Jeff alternating:
Jeff 1: "I like soft songs full of meaning"
Jeff 2: "I just like yelling and screaming"

"You Don't Have to Be a Scientist..." is definitely one of the "soft songs full of meaning" but some other songs on the album are full-on yelling and screaming, particularly the brilliant and educational song "If You Shoot the Head You Kill the Ghoul", which contains useful tips about how to survive a zombie rampage.

Answer: scary

Very true. This line was used as the title of a documentary made about the Jeffrey Lewis Band by Kidam, a small French film company.

Answer: And it never gets a sore throat

"City & Eastern Songs" (as in anti-Country & Western - get it?) was released in 2005. It had much higher production values than previous albums and a couple of the songs even had proper professional videos made for them.

The cover states that the album is actually by Jeffrey and Jack Lewis. Jack is Jeff's little brother and he has featured on his other albums as well - playing guitar and writing some of the songs - but this is the first where he gets equal billing. Jack's songs tend to be more loud and punky and less introspective than Jeff's.

Answer: Ginsberg or Camus

The was one of the stand-out tracks on "City & Eastern Songs". If you can, you should check out the video for it on YouTube.

I haven't done any question about lyrics from Jeff's next album on Rough Trade, "12 Crass Songs", released in 2007. This is because, as the title suggests, it is folky versions of 12 songs written by the anarchist punk band Crass rather than being original Jeff Lewis compositions.

Answer: The Yuppie Scum

This is a protest song in the tradition of Dylan and Guthrie - except with a bit more swearing - about the lower-east-side fast-food institution Sal's putting prices up by 50c a slice.

One of Jeff's earlier compositions and originally released in 2000 on a very limited edition cassette album, this was among his old songs dug out to include on the album "Tapes From the Crypt", available from Olive Juice Music.