Closing Statement: “Turn It Around” by toyGuitar

I had to turn it around

Sometimes there are songs that do such a great job closing their records that they transcend that particular album or EP and take on a new life as the soundtrack to life’s final moments. The song that most embodies this idea is probably “40” by U2, a song that has taken on a life of its own as THE song to close a U2 show. More on this later.

Maybe I feel this way because I discovered One Man Army so early in their career, but I feel like every project Jack Dalrymple is in, calls back to that band. In 1997 I picked up a copy of the Insufficient Funds four-way split that included their song “Down the Block” (which also appeared on the band’s 1998 full-length debut Dead End Stories) and from the moment I heard that opening riff, I was hooked. Since then, I have followed Dalrymple’s career from One Man Army to Dead To Me to Swingin’ Utters (where he’s still a member), to the Re-Volts, back to One Man Army and eventually to toyGuitar. Whether he is the main force behind the band or playing guitar, there is something incredibly distinctive about everything that Jack Dalrymple does.

After One Man Army returned and released the EP She’s An Alarm in 2012, bassist and Dalrymple’s longtime friend Heiko Schleprel passed away in April 2015. By that time, toyGuitar had released their self-titled debut EP in 2013 and their full-length debut In This Mess in January 2015. The seeds of where Dalrymple’s songwriting would go in toyGuitar were planted on that final One Man Army EP.

In 2016, I stated the following about Move Like a Ghost and toyGuitar,

Over the course of three releases the band has created and perfected a sound that mixes elements of power pop, garage rock, punk, and surf resulting in music that is high energy, catchy as hell, and unique and familiar all at the same time. Singer/guitarist Jack Dalrymple is a masterful songwriter that has been churning out classic tunes for nearly two decades as part of One Man Army, Dead To Me, and Swingin’ Utters and now with toyGuitar he’s spread his wings even farther showing the world what longtime fans have always know: Dalrymple is a genius. (Brown, 2016)

Or as New Noise Magazine’s Scott Murry (2016) put it,

With a lengthy career of brash, and speedy street punk to fill his resume, toyGuitar is a change of scenery for Dalrymple. His sound has transitioned from gritty Tenderloin to the crashing bay waves of Fort Point. He notes where he’s been as a songwriter, and exposes wanderlust for ways to branch out. Move Like a Ghost sways to surf vibes that jangle your bones and put wiggle in the hips. Reverb raunch and high guitar melodies pop out of every section. Paul Oxborrow’s bass lines bob in a rhythm that would synch up perfectly with a Dog Town skate slalom. Massive swells of rhythm build tension just as quickly as they release with Rosie Gonce snapping the kit on “Peach Fuzz” like a “Wipeout” contemporary. At any given moment that you expect a crash, things only come out on top.

[...]

The album channels the fun side of death in lyrics that reminisce old times while taunting what the future may hold. As the cover art suggests, Dalrymple’s vocals echo muffled as a spooky spirit under a sheet might. With great practice in being punk, it’s thrilling to hear toyGuitar continue to mash up more influences and get high on something new.

Murray is correct in that the overall vibe of the EP is fun. While there is a lot on the record that deals with death, I’m not sure it is the death itself that is fun. Enter “Turn It Around.”

I know I should have been the one
Like when we were kids
And the warmth of the sun
You’ve been feeling down
But it’s alright?
You’ve been calling me
Like a friend in need
But I said

In a second...
You can’t come over
In a minute...
I don’t want you around
The last moments tasted so bitter
I don’t feel like I tried
To make time
I had to turn it around
Was it ok?

In a second...
You can’t come over
In a minute...
I don’t want you around
The last moments tasted so bitter
I don’t feel like I tried
To be the one
Like when we were kids
The warmth of the sun
When you were down
When you were down

I know I should have been the one
Like when we were kids
Like when we were kids

When you were down (toyGuitar, 2016)

This is not a song that is playing in or with fun. This is a somber song that is full of remorse, heartache, and guilt. It works as a closing track because it is different and slows things down before saying goodbye. Here’s the thing though, “Turn It Around” is only half of the story. Dalrymple explained in an interview with Dying Scene (n.d.),

Dalrymple, for his part, not only sings lead vocals but also has solo writing credit’s on Peace And Love‘s closing track, “H.L.S.” As you might imagine given the title, the song shares an influence with another Dalrymple-fronted track, albeit by a different project: toyGuitar’s “Turn It Around.” That, of course, is the 2015 passing of Dalrymple’s former One Man Army bandmate Heiko Schrepel. Dalrymple was gun-shy about including the song. “I think I was kinda nervous, man,” he explains, with some hesitation apparent. “It felt too raw, and maybe like it was too much. I didn’t really want to release it.” After playing an early version of the track for a few people, it was Koski who convinced him to give it a go. “He was like “I’ve got this idea. Hear me out! Hear me out!” And I didn’t even want to fucking do the song. In my world, that song would have been like after the record ended and two minutes of silence go by, then maybe that song starts. And Darius was like “no, fuck that, we gotta do it this way!”

The end result is a sweet, haunting, largely acoustic track, that provides a poignant, meaningful endnote to an album that’s pretty important album both within the band’s ranks and in the scene in general.

It smells like the sound
When we’d make noise hangin’ around
Felt like something
Effortless and profound
It went by in a window
While we slept under the stars
Shared a love that bound us
And then broke us all apart
I still watch the stills
And it feels
Like they kill

I know I let you down man
I had to turn it around

You feel like a ghost
It comes and it goes
When I’m in your old room
Or I play the wrong “notes”
When someone says “that’s real”
Or they play ELO
All those times at my house
I’d make you get stoned
It still doesn’t feel
Like it’s real
Like it’s real

I know I let you down
I had to turn it around

I hope you heard me at the end
I hope you always knew what you meant
I feel down
You’re not around

You’re not around (Swingin’ Utters, 2018)

“H.L.S.” is the final track on the Swingin’ Utters’ tenth studio album, 2018’s Peace and Love. It is also a devastatingly haunting song that also happens to be the record’s standout moment. After finding the interview above, I couldn’t help but think of “H.L.S.” and “Turn It Around” in the same breath. Then after my Mother-in-Law passed away in 2021, these songs took on a whole new meaning.

“Turn It Around” and “H.L.S.” are about the finality of death and pain of loss. Both recognize that there is joy in remembrance but it is tempered by the knowledge that it will forever be in the past. That is how these songs transcend, how they go beyond being great closing tracks, by being great tracks about closure and saying goodbye.

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