Portland, Oregon artist Jeffrey Martin recently announced the release of Thank God We Left the Garden, his first new full-length since 2017’s One Go Around. Available for pre-order now HERE, the 11-track set is due out November 3 via Fluff & Gravy Records (Margo Cilker, Kassi Valazza) and Loose Music in the UK/EU (Andrew Combs, Courtney Marie Andrews). H recently shared shares a gripping story of atonement and transformation, while confronting the callous homophobia that was so rampant during his youth, with his new single “Red Station Wagon.
Of the track, Martin offers, “I wanted to tell a story of transformation. Someone becoming better than they used to be, and owning the ugliness of their past. Just a few years ago derogatory homophobic language was the norm in our culture. Across the board, in movies, television, comedy, books, and so also in the language of young people everywhere, and most especially young men, to be ‘gay’ was the go to insult for anyone and any thing that was seen as weak or weird. ‘Red Station Wagon’ is rooted in a deep shared truth. It’s the story of a confession of one man to another, looking back on a crucial moment from his youth where a dear friend of his took a big risk and courageously chose to be vulnerable, only to be betrayed by him in the worst possible way…Part of any genuine atonement is the honest confession of what one did wrong, and I felt it was crucial to use the raw and hurtful language directly in the song, partly to make the narrator’s apology more sincere, and partly to call out everyone (myself included) who ever used language like that and hasn’t honestly reflected on it since.”
