From the Nebraska Plant

From the Nebraska Plant
Album	Jenny from Thebes
Released	October 27, 2023
Length	3:34
Previous Track	"Murder at the 18th St. Garage"
Next Track	"Same as Cash"

From the Nebraska Plant is the seventh song on Jenny from Thebes. On the back cover of the vinyl edition, this song is subtitled "The future, seen from a hard place."

Lyrics

I recall the curb
Waiting for the bus
Flaky yellow paint
What's become of us?

Searching in the snow
For something in the distance
When the vision comes
I have no resistance

It's one of several iterations
It gets hard to keep track
On your custom Kawasaki
With the stinger on the back

Walk across the bridge
Used to get so scared
Signed out AMA
No one really cared

It wasn't in your nature
Taking in the strays
But you handed me your helmet
I clung to you for days

But I am strong now, I am strong now
That was all years back
On your custom Kawasaki
Chrome yellow and black

It's somewhere in a wreckyard now
Never see it again on this earth
Let the scavengers proclaim
How much it was worth

Out here on the median
Not sure what to do
Figure something's got to happen sometime
I wait all day for you

Flak jacket full of holes
Kevlar coated and dusty black
On your custom Kawasaki with the stinger on the back

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song

• "So when it came time to make the master list for the Jenny From Thebes sessions, I drew up a document and after a few back-and-forths Peter says: "you keep mentioning 'Bike,' it's not in the folder. What is 'Bike'?". Lol oops my bad, it's actually one of my favorite ones I think, I say, I'm going to change the title, didn't realize you guys didn't have it. Here: and I send it. A week or two later I hear from Peter, the member of the band who's worked with me the longest. I take Peter's word on my stuff to heart, he doesn't just weigh in constantly -- when he says he likes something, it carried weight for me. Here's what he said: "Dude I finally got around to Bike and holy shit. That's the centerpiece of the fucking album! One small note that you're free to take or leave re the bridge: Junkyards are profound metaphors. Bc they're not dumps - that bike isn't thrown away. It's going to get picked over for a few weeks/months by cheapskate home mechanics, and then it'll get tossed in the crusher and hauled off to be melted down and subsequently born anew. As another bike, as an I-beam, as tableware, as piano strings, you name it. The cycle of life! Just tossin' that out there, do with it what you will. LOVE the fucking song though!". Well, this really lit a fire under me to make the song occupy a position worthy of my bandmate's high estimation. I think we got there -- I love Alicia's mournful guitar figure, I love Wurster in full Gadd mode just locking it completely down, and I love that this feels like the truest song of the bunch -- the one that tells the story as it actually is, the one that finds the characters where they'd actually be: broken, or lost." -- Twitter

Things Referenced in this Song

• The narrator of this song is the same narrator as in Jenny.
• The Kawasaki referenced in this song is the motorbike that Jenny drives in the song Jenny.
• The title may be a reference to the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing plant in Lincoln, Nebraska, where the GPz750 Turbo (identified as the bike Jenny buys in the subtitle of "Same as Cash") was manufactured.

Live Shows this Song Was Played at

• 2024-04-05 - Haw River Ballroom - Saxapahaw, NC
• 2024-04-06 - The Eastern - Atlanta, GA
• 2024-04-08 - Victory Theatre - Evansville, IN
• 2024-04-09 - Kalamazoo State Theatre - Kalamazoo, MI
• 2024-04-10 - Turner Hall Ballroom - Milwaukee, WI
• 2024-04-12 - Palace Theatre - Saint Paul, MN
• 2024-04-13 - The City Center - Champaign, IL
• 2024-04-15 - Washington's - Fort Collins, CO
• 2024-04-16 - Gothic Theatre - Denver, CO
• 2024-04-17 - Gothic Theatre - Denver, CO
• 2024-04-19 - The Stiefel Theatre - Salina, KS
• 2024-07-31 - The Rooftop at Pier 17 - New York, NY