SeanPaulMurphyVille: BREAKUP CITY released

My second album Breakup City was just released. It is streaming everywhere.

My first album, The Elusive Farm Girl, was a concept album. I wouldn't call Breakup City one. However, I would describe it as a lyrical documentary. I began playing the guitar and writing songs in the summer of 1983 when my first love broke up with me after a four year relationship. The songs that poured out of me expressed all of the angst and anger and longing and regret that a suicidal twenty-something year-old could muster. Songwriting proved to be a much needed form of therapy for me.

According to the researcher Elisabeth Kübler-Ross people go through five stages as they approach death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The same thing is true of breakups. On this album you will hear me experience all of those five stages in great detail. Some of the songs might be exaggerated, but they all come from a place of emotional sincerity.

Another difference between Breakup City and The Elusive Farm Girl is that the songs on my previous album were intended only for an audience of one. That isn't so in this case. When I started playing the guitar, I formed a band called The Atomic Enema with my friends Jim Jackson, Mike Mazziott and Nick Mazziott. I wrote these songs with the intention of performing them publicly. That said, The Atomic Enema was a rather blunt instrument more suited to fast, punk-style rockers than ballads. Although I presented most of these songs to the band, only the harder ones made it into the playlist.

Here's The Atomic Enema playing their version one of the songs on this album:

Another difference between the albums is that I am still friends with my elusive farm girl but I am sadly no longer in touch with the subject of these songs. But that's just as well. I suspect she'd kill me if she heard this album. The songs paint an unfairly negative picture of her. In reality, she was a kind and sweet woman who made me very happy for a number of years. Think about it. If I hadn't been so happy with her, I wouldn't have been as devastated by our breakup. My only complaint about her was that we didn't stay together. These songs are less a portrait of her than of my own sorrow and grief.

One final note. Although you can find recordings of me playing all of these songs myself on my YouTube channel, I used the artificial intelligence engine Udio to realize these final versions. Trust me, I did you a favor. You would not want to hear me singing these songs for an hour or so!

Here are the tracks.

1). LYING AWAKE. This melancholy tune was the first song I wrote. Although my drummer Nick liked this song, I felt it was a little to maudlin to stay in the playlist. I like the Udio version much better than my own! (That isn't always true. Sometimes I like my versions better, but I only used the Udio versions on this album for the sake of consistency.)

2). MAYBE I WAS CRAZY. This was the second song I wrote. I am amused by the tonal change between this one and the first one. My first song was filled with longing for my ex. This song is simply angry. Who needs her? (I did.)

3). SHE LIED SHE LIED TO ME. This was the third song I wrote and perhaps the most unfair one. Although we didn't live up to the optimistic expectations we voiced to each other at the beginning of our relationship, my ex was pretty straightforward about her current feelings throughout our relationship right up until the end. I have to admire her for that. Honesty is sometimes difficult. However, I liked the song so here it is. I think it could have been a big pre-British Invasion hit.

4). WHEN YOU'RE DEAD. This is the signature song of my band. Once heard, most people never forgot it. It is not meant to be taken seriously. I never wished death on any of my girlfriends or anyone else. I wanted to write the ultimate breakup song, I am believe I succeeded.

5). TELL ME. Immediately after writing my least sensitive song, I wrote my most sensitive one to date. I co-wrote this song with my drummer Nick Mazziott. He showed me a cool chord progression he had just learned. I used that progression to write this ballad that evening. The band actually made a real attempt to record this song, but sadly that version doesn't exist in a digital format.

6). A LONELY ROAD. In my post-breakup days, I would often drive west from my home in Maryland for days with no set destination. I covered a lot of lonely miles and saw a lot of the country.

7). WILL YOU BRING YOUR LOVE AROUND? I wasn't the only guy in the band dealing with a breakup. My bass player Jim Jackson also broke up with his long time girlfriend. This is mainly his song. He started it, but I helped him finish it. It was a mainstay of our band. (See our version above.)

8). THE SOUND OF A LONELY HEART. This song was another mainstay of our band. It was reflective of my feelings at the time and fun to play.

9). MAYBE ONE DAY. I had this melody for years, but the lyrics kept changing. I didn't finalize the song until I created this version. I love the Latin feel.

10). THE VOID. This is just me being suicidally depressed again. At least now I was mature enough to take some responsibility for the breakup.

11). IF NOT ME. I wondered who was going to love my ex if not me? Well, I didn't need to worry too much. She's been quite happy without me.

12). TODAY IS THE DAY. I can't remember when I wrote this song, but I think it was years after the breakup. I was ready to move on emotionally. Or was I? If I was really ready to move on, why was I still writing songs about her?

13). KATHERINE OH KATHERINE. This was actually the fifth song I wrote, but the final verse didn't come until much later. That's why I put it near the end of the album.

14). TOGETHER (HAND IN HAND). Depending on your perspective, this is either a very old song or a very new one. When I was recording these songs myself, I searched through an old notebook for material and found an unfinished fragment. I really liked it and decided to finish it up for this album. When I say we learned to love together, I don't necessarily mean sexually. Our parents both had troubled marriages so we didn't have successful role models in the ways of love. We had to figure out love ourselves, with the help of songs by Carole King and Bread.

I hope you enjoy listening to the album more than I enjoyed writing it!

You can listen to Breakup City on these and other streaming services:

My Albums:

Many Sides of Love

Tales of Love and Death

Breakup City

The Elusive Farm Girl

Here's some music videos I worked on:

Big Pun: Twinz (Deep Cover 98)

Crack The Sky: Mr. President
Greg Kihn: Horror Show
Nils Lofgren: Alone

Face Dancer: Red Shoes

The Sunday Cannons: Friends Become Flowers

Other blogs about songwriting:

Sean Paul Murphy: (Failed) Songwriter

Sean Paul Murphy: (Failed) Songwriter, Pt. 2

Be sure to check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, published by TouchPoint Press. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.

Here are some sample chapters of The Promise:

Chapter 1 - A Photograph

Chapter 2 - My Death

Chapter 3 - Childhood

Chapter 4 - Saved!

Chapter 5 - The Promise

Chapter 6 - The Mission

Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

Be sure to check out my novel Chapel Street. It tells the story of a young man straddling the line between sanity and madness while battling a demonic entity that has driven his family members to suicide for generations. It was inspired by an actual haunting my family experienced.

You can buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.

Learn more about the book, click Here.

Watch the book trailer: