John Murry has just released his latest album, The Stars Are God's Bullet Holes, via Submarine Cats Records. Packed with searing honesty and twisted storytelling, listeners probably have their own favourite track, but for us it's 'Di Kreutser Sonata'. There's a lyric that strikes us -"I know I'm not what you bargained for..." - that feeling of insecurity that sits deeply at the core of many people is what emanates from this single. It's a sensitive quietude that contrasts to the sharp tongue and grizzly guitars of much of the rest of the record. A reason for this vulnerable tone is that Murry is laying out the relationship with his adopted family (relatives of American writer William Faulkner) and how they bought him from his young Cherokee mother. This isn't only the story of one musician, it's to story of many First Nations children stolen or bought from their biological families.
“I think I'm probably telling the truth there,” Murry says. “The part about swindle, that actually would have been my last name [had he stayed with his birth family]. The second half of that song I just kind of made up while I was in there. Some of the lines I was amazed they came. I know I would censor that now. I would change it. I don't know that I feel good about that, but I don't feel bad about i t either. I don't know that I really like that line, because I don't know that it's all that good. It's a weird way to end the verse. But it's there and it's OK. Sometimes it's OK to let these things rest and to accept you're imperfect.”