Singled Out: Hope Dunbar's Jeneane

Hope Dunbar released her new album "Three Black Crows" today (October 6th) and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the song "Jeneane". Here is the story:

A couple of years ago, in a museum bookstore, I found this book called, "The Amazing Story Generator." It was similar to a childrens' book where the pages had been cut into thirds: Monster heads on the first strip, monster bodies on the second, and monster feet on the bottom, and the kid can construct the beast of his or her dreams just by flipping the pages. You get it, right? Well the pages in "The Amazing Story Generator" can be flipped to create writing prompts crazier than any I had ever encountered.

My sister-in-law, Emily Dunbar (also a songwriter) and I were having a ball trying to write songs to prompts such as "on the run from federal agents a professional assassin gets trapped in a goldmine" and "after losing a bet an Elvis impersonator must choose between love and money." Basically we were writing songs to crack each other up and it was working. Big time.

Then right around then she and I went to a Todd Snider concert. I love Todd Snider. And Todd Snider loves crazy songs so I sent him the song I had written to the assassin prompt. He actually responded!!! Bananas. In a moment of fearlessness I wrote him back and gave him a prompt from the book, "In an effort to win back an old flame, a drummer from a punk rock band steals a baby."

I sent it to him, but couldn't keep from diving in and writing the song myself. The reason why the girlfriend's name is Jeneane is because I was imagining David St. Hubbins of the famed band, Spinal Tap, as the lovable dummy stupid enough to steal a baby to appease his girlfriend. I like to think that other Spinal Tap fans will get the reference.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!

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