Jeremy Fisher Brings Heavy Topics To The Forefront On US Debut 'Goodbye Blue Monday'

New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Wind-Up Records) - Though troubadour Jeremy Fisher's first US release 'Goodbye Blue Monday' (Sept. 18, Wind-up Records) is making waves with the hypnotic single "Cigarette," the album also features songs that highlight heavier issues including "Lay Down (Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar)" and "American Girls." Read the lyrics here and listen to the songs here.

The politically charged "Lay Down (Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar)" reveals Fisher's gifted and intelligent songwriting. "Lay Down (Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar)" is told from the perspective of the United States Federal Air Marshal who fatally shot unarmed passenger Rigoberto Alpizar in the Miami International Airport in December 2005. Though officials believed Alpizar claimed he had a bomb in his carry-on bag, no explosives were found following the shooting. "What I'm really trying to do is relate to people on a human level," Fisher explains. "I tend to gravitate toward the human element of a story in my songs. Music is such a mysterious thing because it's basically invisible but a song can convey an amazing amount of emotion."

That's certainly the case with "American Girls," which boasts another audaciously unsettling premise. "I wrote the chorus and lyrics immediately after reading the verdict on Private Lynndie England, who was the Abu Ghraib soldier who took all the photos with the Iraqi prisoners," Fisher points out.
"It was so controversial and got so much attention, and she ended up being the scapegoat, but the verdict got buried in the back of the newspapers because it wasn't sensational enough. I didn't want to let it go by without being documented. That song and 'The Ballad of Rigoberto Alpizar' are both about events that are monumental but not nearly as important as the fact that a certain superstar wasn't wearing underwear when she got out of a limo. This is a very weird culture we live in."