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  • Full Digital Discography

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Optimist Breakfast, Dennis, The Quiet Sounds of Sewing, The Favor, Sky Pink, Let 'Em Bleed, Would You Like to Come In?, Aries, and 5 more. , and , .

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about

This is the youngest song that made it onto this album.
When Dean went up to Nashville to record for this album, he went on his motorcycle. His dad rode along with him on his own motorcycle.
On the first day of the trip, I-95 became a long, low, flat bridge over a decent sized lake. Looking off to his right, Dean saw the silhouette of a man standing up in an old flat-bottom John boat, fishing, about a hundred yards off the side of the bridge. That got Dean thinking about John boats, and in a few minutes the whole first verse had been formed in his brain.
He signaled to his dad to pull over "so they could put on rain gear", and Dean quickly wrote the first two verses down in his phone notes.
Several days later, after his dad had left for home again, Dean was alone in a hotel in Nashville the night before the recording sessions. He pulled out his guitar and the lyric scrap, went into the parking lot to smoke something, came back in and finished the song. He recorded it the next day, and it made it on the album.

lyrics

John-boat out on the Chesapeake bay
Flat bottom filling from the rolling waves
Grab that bucket, baby, and bail away
We gotta go find Ira

My friend Ira was a hell of a man
He had my back in Afghanistan
He was the Butch Cassidy to my Sundance
Baby, we gotta go find Ira

We came back, just a couple of boys
That fastback Ford was his favorite toy
He was a heartbreaker, his mama’s pride and joy
Baby, we gotta go find Ira

Yesterday morning she was flat as a lake
Storm rolled in, waves began to break
He was driving for Eastville from a day at the Cape
Baby we gotta go find Ira

All we found was a bumper and lights
Sinking in the water in the middle of the night
I grabbed that bumper and I held on tight
Baby, I’m gonna go find Ira

First, things got dark and then things got bright
There were golden gates and angels in flight
Then a platoon of angels all moved to the side
And there was standing Ira

Then I fell back down, like a stick on a knife
A couple EMTs were there saving my life
I’d never been so glad to see flashing lights
I screamed, “Baby, I just saw Ira!”

credits

from Optimist Breakfast, released April 29, 2023

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Dean Batten Daytona Beach, Florida

Often genre-bending, thought provoking and emotion stoking, Dean Batten's music is most concretely one thing: captivating.

Moving forward from his previous work, Dean has re-embraced the folk, early rock and country sounds of his childhood with 3 new albums: "Optimist Breakfast", an acoustic album; "Pessimist Lunch", a full band version with the same songs; and "Realist Supper", a live album. ... more

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