JBM, also known as Jesse Marchant, is a Canadian singer songwriter who plays acoustic guitar and sings about subjects including "personal experience and the familiarity with loss," according to Glide Magazine. His music has been compared to "Bread meets America". In 2011, he signed a recording contract with Brooklyn-based Partisan Records.
Marchant was born in Montreal. He was classically trained in guitar from the age of seven. According to one account, as a young man Marchant lived in his family's home in the Adirondack Mountains for three years, living mostly in seclusion, to realize songs that he had written earlier in Los Angeles. In 2008, he recorded songs in a church studio in Hudson, New York. Vocals were recorded in such a way as to give a "reverb-washed" sound, according to critic Brittney McKenna. In an interview he emphasized the importance of songs that must "sit right" with him and feel that they "belong together" with consistent "textural elements and colors" before being recorded:
The sea
The breeze
The hillsides dressed in red October leaves
Couldn't keep
My mind off you in everything I see
And it isn't the way you hold a gaze
It isn't the way you take the wade (wave)
But the way it feels to walk with you in the rain
You are the breeze
You are the breeze
Love, lost
Love, lost
Love, lost
Love, lost
You see what it means to be free
The different things that people tell you to try
The different things that keep you from living your life
Sunsets and breezes that used to tickle your eyes
They don't warm you now
Not even in July
If I could see you now
I wouldn't tell you to try
I wouldn't ask how you feel
'Cause
I wouldn't want you to lie
For some reason that
I don't even know why
I feel the need to tell you that I think
That you're gonna be fine
If I was older now I could give you advice
If I was younger now
I'd still know how to smile
Beneath my surface where
There once burned a fire
There's just a pile of ashes now
And old telephone wire
See it ain't just you that can't find desire
It ain't just you that stands with one foot in the fire
but if you'd hold my hand and we'd look to the sky
I think that there's a chance that
We could once again feel alive
But if the sun comes up inside your mind
Then we could make it home just in time
To see a moonlit life taking flight
And into the life we once knew we'll collide
But I know that it ain't easy to try
By the window up in the bedroom I can hear the storm come From many roads away And it brings the night If the ones who died sit around me I hope they’re going to stay And that maybe you’ll arrive In the rain that’s rolling in These summer nights I feel you on my skin
Winter came as a load Frozen down to the bone I lived here half asleep Walking nights to the road Empty, drunk and alone In hopes you’d come to me Before the morning Before you’re running But why are you running? Where are you running? Home?
Once I knew you Lay my head upon your lap Once I knew you In your eyes a calming light Once I knew you And your hand upon my back Once I knew you In a life ain’t coming back
Please don't make a sound
Stop your racing around
You've got feet on the ground
But your head is a kite and your heart longs to be found
Feeling free don't come cheap anymore
Smiling at me like you used to before
When the flames of the fire made you higher
And you sat like a dog in the quiet to breath in the night
Ohhhhh
Ohhhhh
Ohhhhh
I've waited out
On your stump
The pain and doubt as we can learn more
But I'll wait around even if it take too long
Ain't no use in calling up your friends,
Ain't no use in hiding in your bed,
And ain't no use in standing on your head,
cause only silence can fill your loneliness.
Seven days of time to fix your head,
seven days of time you walk the ledge.
And every time you catch a sight
of your relfection,
you can't decide of you should cry
of if it's time to learn.
Can't count how many times I've heard you say
you'd give up all you got for just a day
of feeling fine,
no counting lines
that settled up under your eyes
to fall in love to fall in love to fall in love.
In sympathy, no doubt you hurt your friend
And it's too late now,
but I wrote this down back then.
There aint' no use in cutting through
the darkness that envelops you,
Cover up your hands and tuck in your feet Sunniest day that I have ever seen All of your friends will come out to the sea tonight They' re coming out to say goodbye
I looked away, I looked at the ground Holding your arm I could feel your heart pound But like the waves that rolled into the sound you died And now never will we see your eyes
I ran away from the pain but I still see your face I can still see your face
I hear strange sounds
In the voices that come from the clowns
Who dressed up as snakes
To fight for their stake in the town
I feel heat, it pounds
On the streets where they fight for the crown
And everyday I pull further away
From the crowd
To the life that lives in my head
But has no feet on the ground
Of the love filled streets where
The passing people smile you down
And all those nice ideas
That don't stick around here
Doesn't that competing bullshit drag you down?
Do the things you're needing
Make the things you're feeling count?
And when you've killed every last man standing
Will you look around
To see that your fears
Please don't make a sound Stop your racing around You've got feet on the ground But your head is a kite and your heart longs to be found
Feeling free don't come cheap anymore Smiling at me like you used to before When the flames of the fire made you higher And you sat like a dog in the quiet to breath in the night
Ohhhhh Ohhhhh Ohhhhh
I've waited out On your stump The pain and doubt as we can learn more But I'll wait around even if it take too long I'll wait around til the feeling is gone
I'm back to the sea
As the lights become weak
Pull down the blinds that shutter my life for a week
And the faces I see
The friends I don't keep
And the old folks that start dying in their sleep
And I wish I could speak to say something unique
To give you the comfort that you seek
Oh my love
In the ways that you need me I'm coming back but
Oh my love
It's the ways that you need me that make me want to run
And every time that I think that you find that I see
The distance I keep makes a poor judgen' fool out of me
Just like coming around to a part of your town that you've been
But every things changed from the lights to the houses to tree
But the smell is the same and it makes me remember your dreams
Oh my love
Gather your feet and start walking to the sun my love
Kill off your daemons before your heart turns into one
Is the bittersweet, is it pain that you need?
Is the bittersweet, is it pain that you need?
Is the bittersweet, is it pain that you need?
Is the bittersweet, is it pain that you need?
I picked you up When they called me Your dress is torn, eyes are worn And you got scars on your knees
You say you're changing, but that ain't how it seems
I thanked the morning for sparing your life I showed you reason, you showed me a knife I see, I don't know what you need
By the window up in the bedroom
I can hear the storm come
From many roads away
And it brings the night
If the ones who died sit around me
I hope they're going to stay
And that maybe you'll arrive
In the rain that's rolling in
These summer nights
I feel you on my skin
Winter came as a load
Frozen down to the bone
I lived here half asleep
Walking nights to the road
Empty, drunk and alone
In hopes you'd come to me
Before the morning
Before you're running
But why are you running?
Where are you running?
Home?
Once I knew you
Lay my head upon your lap
Once I knew you
In your eyes a calming light
Once I knew you
And your hand upon my back
Once I knew you
The relief had come in the setting sun And I believed I'd won, I believed I'd won In the darkest light of a moonless night I rode the tide into a heartless life
I gave up my love and didn't it all light up
And now I'm hanging on to older truths I've known But after long nights of forcing a warm smile I feel like I'll die here alone, feel like I'll die alone Ears full of sunlight, breath of a warm night Years of a long drive home