This site and Magana, the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Jeni Magana go back a long way, all the way to her brilliant 2016 EP, Golden Tongue. So it was a great delight that we saw Jeni’s return earlier this year with her fabulous new record, Teeth. After spending the last few years as a touring bassist for the likes of Mitski and Lady Lamb, as well as forming the excellent pop duo pen pin with Emily Moore. Perhaps with all those other projects in mind, Jeni returned to Magana with fresh impetus, as demonstrated throughout Teeth, a record which explores her synthy side in a style she dubbed, “Witchy Rock“. Lyrically as well as musically the record explored new ground, Jeni touching on ideas of “regrowth and a new view on the world” in a record as brutally honest as any she’s ever sounded.

As well as looking forward, Magana is also looking back to the brilliant debut album, You Are Not A Morning Person. We premiered the record at the time, declaring it, “a reflection of a life being led, channelling both the music and the stories of its creator, the sounds she has heard, the people she has met and the places she has seen”. Celebrating both her new record, and the brilliance of her old one, Jeni recently took some time to talk us through You Are Not A Morning Person’s narrative, reflecting on how far she has come and her pride in, “that terrified tiny adult in New York who just wanted to learn how to be confident enough to make her own music”. Read on for her track-by-track down retropsective of one of this decades most thrilling debut albums.

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Jeni Magana: ‘You Are Not a Morning Person’ is a series of vignettes about a fictional character’s life, told from the end of it to the beginning. It’s ultimately a record of trying on new perspectives. I’ve always been a memento mori kinda gal, and so that shows up a lot here. I don’t think we should shy away from the topic of death. I think we should use it to remind us how to live. So that’s where we begin.

The ability to hold different perspectives in your mind seems to me like a very important sign of growing up. And that’s what I was trying to do. The person I was when I started this record in 2017 and the one I am now are vastly different but damn I am proud of that terrified tiny adult in New York who just wanted to learn how to be confident enough to make her own music.

The End

This record starts with the end. In my vision, the person that is depicted in this record has lived their life starting with the last song and ending here. This is the transition moment where the life they lived flashes before their eyes. I wandered around New York for days with a little zoom recorder for this. This is honestly one of my favorite tracks, and sort of started the journey to my next record Teeth. 

Who Am I

This tune is more or less a portrait of dementia. Moving backwards in time, this is shortly before the character’s death at the end of life. It talks about the fear and mistrust and confusion that comes with this part of life, and how it can come on suddenly. My friends Fraser Campbell and JJ Byars played sax on this and many others on the record and it’s one of my favorite parts of the song. 

Face in a Locket 

Moving backward again, this song speaks about the emotions of getting older and feeling left alone. Isolation is a huge part of aging, even with the best of intentions. I was visiting my husband’s grandmother a bit when I was writing this song, and thinking of how it was for my grandma. I have a heart shaped locket of hers that I’m pretty sure she bought from a magazine to help my school when I was young. That started the idea. It’s written from a sort of adult child or grandchild’s point of view because of that locket.

Jenny Don’t Leave

Here is where we learn that the character’s name is Jenny. I thought it was appropriate for us to share a name because so much in these songs are also related to my life experiences (although I haven’t yet grown old and died). So Jenny Don’t Leave is a song about self love. I also sort of imagined it in a middle age range, relating to a long marriage.  It’s a sort of standing in the mirror speech you might give yourself in a movie for some motivation. Hands gripping both sides of the sink. A lightbulb flickering, about to burn out. You get the idea. 

Trouble And I

Now that we are a bit younger, this song is a first brush with mortality. The moment when someone realizes maybe they are not so young anymore and certainly not invincible. This song is the oldest on the record. I wrote it years before about my mom when she was going through a brain tumor (which turned out well in the end luckily!) but I thought it fit the narrative here really well and I was eager to include it. It also marks my first foray into “guitar solos” which was an exciting moment for me. I didn’t have a lot of tools at my disposal at the time, so I just recorded a really long voice memo of me playing the chords and then played it back and practiced over it. It’s also the first time I wrote wind parts out and had someone else play them. It was so scary, but Fraser is a total pro and just sightread this perfectly and was like “yep sounds great!” 

Morning Person

Ok now we have reached this phase in a relationship that I like to call “Just after the end of the rom com.” So in Jenny’s life, this is the point where she realizes that maybe happily ever after is actually going to be a lot of work. It’s mostly a song of learning to compromise. I love this song so much because I’m really interested in exploring the areas we tend to gloss over in stories. I don’t think it’s a sad song, I just think we’ve gained some realistic perspectives at this point. 

No More Friends

Going younger, we shift focus to a different kind of relationship. Best friends! We amp up the drama a little bit from the last song, because things are more dramatic when you’re younger. Friendships are also relationships that need to be maintained. Communication is key! So I think that deserves its own song personally. I wrote the guitar part for the chorus first and then decided it should have lyrics but the only thing I could physically sing over it in the beginning was one line over again, so that’s sort of how the song was born. 

Iodine

I’m going to put this at college age. College. What a wild experience for a person to go through. In a lot of cases, a kid picks up and moves out of the only home they have known and goes to start an entirely unfamiliar life with total strangers. And then at the end of it they are suddenly an adult and have to find a real place to live and then immediately get saddled with debt. I was one of those kids too. I moved from Bakersfield to Boston and I didn’t have the money for flights home, so I suddenly saw my family very rarely. I spent holidays with local friends or working and by the time I did get back to see my extended family, they began to feel like total strangers. 

There’s a line in the song “I have written you before / sounded different when my heart was held by other wars”…I actually re-used these chords from a song I wrote previously that was a love song. So that was my little hint that these very chords carried a very different subject previously. I love the weird surfy breakdown in the middle. I think that was Cassette, the bassist, jamming out a little bit at some point. Originally it was going to be all dramatic and quiet. This is my favorite moment on the record. 

Our TV

Now we’re at a fully youthful viewpoint. We’re at home after school watching reality TV. We’re on the couch and it’s summer and we are brooding over someone at school and drinking a root beer or something. Fun fact about my highschool years: at some point my brother brought home a little baby rooster and a chicken from somewhere and put them in his sock drawer. Obviously they grew up and went outside and after a while the chicken died and the rooster lived for several more years and that thing HATED me. I could not enter or exit my house without it attacking. This has nothing to do with the song but thinking of school age has brought that back and I wanted you to know. Anyway I wrote the opening bass line on guitar and I think it’s so cool how it translates to this busy bass line that takes up so much space. 

Stay a While 

This is a child’s view of love. It’s like what a first real crush feels like. Sort of idealistic and a little creepy honestly. I love the wind arrangement on this one especially because I had the idea for the bell tone chromatic sort of thing in the verse, but I didn’t know if it was going to translate or even how to ask for it. Fraser came in and got it right away and also continued that idea on the spot to the rest of the song. It was a spark of true collaboration and I can still remember the excitement I had about it. 

Before 

Only on the special edition Beanie Tapes version, there’s a final track called Before. I know I skipped a lot of childhood years, and maybe that’ll be a whole other record. But this, probably obviously, is a mirror transition about the before of life. It starts out simple and peaceful, but without much awareness. And then out of it all the whole world starts to bloom. It gets a little chaotic but there’s a faint lullaby tying it all together, letting you know it’s going to be alright.  

Bird’s Poem

A bonus track from the Beanie release! I love this weird song I’m so glad it found a home somewhere. I wrote it during covid, when I was doing all sorts of weird stuff (see my new album Teeth). The first verse is literally a dream that I had. I just opened up this track and freestyled the lyrics basically. But it feels right. 

Magana’s new album, ‘Teeth,’ is out now via Audio Antihero / Colored Pencils.