Human Nature, by John Roseboro

Human Nature

by John Roseboro

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Full Digital Discography

27

releases

Get all 27 John Roseboro releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of 80 Summers, This My Home, Four Cantos, Johnny, Waters of March, The Empress, How To Love Right, I Took The L, and 19 more. , and , .
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Cassette
Cassette + Digital Album
Debut album "Human Nature" on cassette.
Bonus track. Free domestic shipping. Limited 100 copies.

ATTENTION:
The great nation of Australia has made shipping to the country financially irresponsible due to Corona virus related complications. War profiteers and wicked leadership has also made shipping to Russia impossible! If I receive any more orders from Australia or Russia I will have to respectfully decline. If you have any questions feel free to DM me on Instagram. So sorry!

TL;DR: *NO MORE SHIPPING TO RUSSIA OR AUSTRAILIA*

Includes unlimited streaming of Human Nature via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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CD
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Debut album "Human Nature" on CD.
Bonus track. Free domestic shipping. Limited 100 copies.

ATTENTION:
The great nation of Australia has made shipping to the country financially irresponsible due to Corona virus related complications. War profiteers and wicked leadership has also made shipping to Russia impossible! If I receive any more orders from Australia or Russia I will have to respectfully decline. If you have any questions feel free to DM me on Instagram. So sorry!

TL;DR: *NO MORE SHIPPING TO RUSSIA OR AUSTRAILIA*

Includes unlimited streaming of Human Nature via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Vinyl 12" (Limited Press)
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
So many have been watching my career blossom project after project, listening to and sharing my work. This has been such a blessing and I hope to be one in return. For many this record will be the closest I can come to playing a show for a while, but now I'll know where to go first ;-)

A milestone in my career as an artist and for post bossa.

With all humility and gratitude,

John

ATTENTION:
The great nation of Australia has made shipping to the country financially irresponsible due to Corona virus related complications. War profiteers and wicked leadership has also made shipping to Russia impossible! If I receive any more orders from Australia or Russia I will have to respectfully decline. If you have any questions feel free to DM me on Instagram. So sorry!

TL;DR: *NO MORE SHIPPING TO RUSSIA OR AUSTRAILIA*

Includes unlimited streaming of Human Nature via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ... more

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1.	Mere Mortal 02:37	lyrics	buy track
Feeling inside out World is upside down But I know my way around (Come on) Chew me up Spit me out Cos I know how this ends Death creeps in Slowly then All at once Then your done I'm only 25, I've got the rest of my life I'm only 35, I've got the rest of my life I'm only 45, I've got the rest of my life I'm only 65, I've got the... What's the fuss What the F Get me out of here Holding on, but what for Fear of hell or hope of reward Just wanna do something I'll be remembered for Love real hard and die a martyr I'm only 25, I've got the rest of my life I'm only 35, I've got the rest of my life I'm only 45, I've got the rest of my life I'm only 65, I've got the... WORLD IN MY HANDS
2.	La Nuit Des Temps 02:58	lyrics	buy track
Ah, La nuit des temps Le temps perdu Qui coule qui vole Trop vite, trop lent Mais si tu donne Tout ton coeur À chaque instant Sans peine, sans peur Tu garderas le moment Me voilà maintenant Un pas à gauche un pas à droite Derrière devant Si l’esprit m’entends Lorsque je danse Il dansera avec moi Il est toujours là Derrière la vitre Cachée comme une huître qui attend Seulement La lune, ah, décroissante Et un peu de silence, mmm, Juste un peu de silence Et puis enfin quand Ton coeur est calme Et le ciel est noir Il s’ouvre sous la nouvelle lune Timide heureux plein d’espoir Et puis devine qui Éclaire le soir Avec une perle Pleine, brillante, Ton miroir Il est toujours la Derrière la vitre, Caché comme une huître qui attends seulement Une danse ensemble Et un peu de silence, mmm, Juste un peu de silence Love is always there If you get quiet and close up your eyes you will see, finally He’s been waiting eternally For you to see mmm For you to see —— Ah, the dawn of time The time that’s lost That leaks, that flies Too quick, too slow But if you give your whole heart To every instant Without fear, without pain You’ll keep the moment Here I am now A step to the left, to the right Behind, and front If the Spirit hears me as I dance He’ll dance with me He is always there Just beyond the window Hidden like an oyster who’s just waiting For the waning moon and a little silence And finally when Your heart is calm And the sky is dark He’ll open up Timid and joyful and full of hope And then guess who Lights up the evening With a pearl! Full and glowing, Your mirror He is always there Just behind the window, Hidden like an oyster who awaits only A dance together And a little bit of silence Mmm… Just a bit of silence Love is always there If you get quiet and close up your eyes you will see, finally He’s been waiting eternally For you to see Mmm… For you to see
3.	Human Nature 03:55	lyrics	buy track
Remember now your good Creator Who orders the times with you in mind And keeps you for His good pleasure You wonder why, to test and try Your faith, your hope, your love in The way, the truth, the life My God, my Lord, and Savior That was, and is, and is to come And keep in mind your vain mortality Smoke in a jar, dust in a star (that's all you are) Shooting for glory in eternity O, silly girl; Ah, foolish man First learn to live By faith, by hope, by love in The way, the truth, the life My God, my Lord, and Savior Who is and was and is to come But it's in our nature to forget our nature Yeah, it's human nature to go against nature So keep in mind the war for your soul The enemy is fierce yet we'll overcome them all Even though I sometimes stumbled We'll never fall if and so long as we Keep faith, keep hope, keep love in The way, the truth, the life My God, my Lord, and Savior Who is and was and is to come But it's in our nature to forget our nature Yeah, it's human nature to go against nature
4.	Universal Themes 01:16	lyrics	buy track
Blood splat like Pollock The chaos upon us The cosmic conflict Their power trip Love and it's opposite Love and other universal themes Sometimes I want Someone to just Hold me and say...
5.	Joy 02:13	lyrics	buy track
Let me introduce you to a greater truth It's something found inside of you To get rid of the noise Voices, I know you get these funny thoughts But you're not the only one Don't let them steal your joy What if a change of perspective Would end your depression And get you back your joy Maybe you've forgotten what it feels like to be free Finally be all you were called to be But only you can make that choice Forces, against you but I am here for you The greatest truth inside of you is You are the steward of your heart What if a change of perspective Would end your depression And get you back your joy What if a change of perspective Would end your depression And get you back your joy
6.	MFL 02:59	lyrics	buy track
Piece by piece the scales fall from her eyes She's really starting to see my human side Too uncouth and unrefined But then I see that smile She loves me for who I am  But now I've said something so dumb (You've done it now John) You screwed it all up But before I can apologize she let's it slide And then I see that smile She loves me for who I am "Kurukurukurukurukurukurukuru. Mama, I am strong" Don't know what to do... but everyone sing along cos SHE LOVES ME FOR WHO I AM.
7.	Black & White 01:05	lyrics	buy track
Gather or scatter; truth or lie; life or die That's as black and white as it gets So are you in or out, faith or doubt Now baby, I can't make your mind And brother, I can't change your mind But the time will come and the time will go Til there's no time left and it's time to go home Now, I don't want to waste your time Cos I know you ain't colorblind But it is that black and white
8.	Cheat Death 03:12	lyrics	buy track
I make it look so easy It’s just 'cause I know the secrets I heard you called burnt out Look up, behold the phoenix You’re angsty and depressed I know the situation A few short-lived pleasures Followed by annihilation Transient joys are the sweetest Listless lives are the bleakest (What have I become?) Life is brief Flicker and die Life is brief I'll make it up as I go I’m easy likе the way the wind blows You silly girls You poor kids chasing vapors It’s not a simple thing It’s quitе hard to be human But you can make it fun Once you know what you’re doin' Transient joys are the sweetest Listless lives are the bleakest What have I become? Life is brief Flicker and die Life is brief And you're still wasting time
9.	Antihero 02:06	lyrics	buy track
How am I supposed to help you, I can barely help myself How am I supposed to help you, I can barely help myself I've been hiding from troubles I've created If you've been reaching out, sorry how've been behaving A little cold and distant, maybe more than a little Don't mean to sound all fragile, but you should know my heart is brittle How am I supposed to help you, I can barely help myself How am I supposed to help you, I can barely help myself I've been wildin out and I've been seeing visions Girl, I've been hanging out with freaks and apparitions I even talked to God and I'm still feeling empty I just called to say that, you can go on without me How am I supposed to help you, I can barely help myself How am I supposed to help you, I only care about myself
10.	Pilgim's Process 03:26	lyrics	buy track
We all wanna see the progress But it's all about the process Faith/hope/love with a clean conscience Son of God about to manifest here No more going through the motions Everyday is my devotional You are my all in all What you're working in, I'm working out Really starting to see it's not about Me me me So good to be on your good side Now your righteousness is mine and I'm Yours I was lost, but now I'm learning to discern What's real Now I know where my strength comes from The hill where my soul was sealed Still... We all wanna see the progress But it's all about the process Faith/hope/love with a clean conscience Son of God about to manifest here

about

John Roseboro is invincible. You can feel his invincibility rolling off him in waves. It’s baffling, magnetic. Unsettling. “I’m walking with God,” he said when his mother asked him how he was. His faith is remarkable in that it is utterly unabashed. He does not hide or twist it to fit comfortably anywhere. He’s not afraid of being rejected. He’s not really afraid of anything, actually. You can feel that just standing next to him. It makes you wonder.

“I pray a lot,” John told me, when I asked if he ever has doubts. (He doesn’t.)

It made me wonder.

I grew up singing in church with my mom, and when our voices would harmonize, I sure felt something, and I called it God. Then Jesus became very uncool, and I rebelled, (or conformed, I guess) skipping down ‘love and light’ road straight to ‘you are the universe expressing itself’ island. Unfortunately, the black hole of “you just need more self-love” did NOT (spoiler alert) manage to heal my trauma and save the world, so by the time I met John I was just kind of floored by how... secure he seemed. He reminded me of my mom, grounded in and flowing with some source of love I couldn’t seem to keep hold of for more than a couple days.

“Build your house on rock,” I read somewhere in the Bible John gave me. It’s a phrase that often comes to mind around him. There certainly is no rug to pull out from under that guy.

“Can we pray real quick?” John will say suddenly when we hang out. Scrunching his eyes up like a child, he’ll start, “Heavenly Father...” His prayers are as simple and straightforward as if he were talking to me.

I don’t know how much time passed after meeting John before I finally summoned the courage to talk to God myself. Up until the moment I opened my mouth- and choked - I didn’t realize how terrified I was… that nobody would answer, that all the worst voices in my head were right, and that I was bitterly alone in an indifferent universe, an incompetent worm of a captain at the helm of my life. It took another half hour before I forced myself to squeak, “…… God? ………. God? ...............”

The third time I uttered, “God,” a teeny tiny candle somewhere deep in my heart sputtered unmistakably to life. It was not just an energy, or a force - It was a presence so completely personal that it moved me to tears because I felt, as I hardly ever do on this dang rock, completely seen and understood.

Today I can’t imagine how anybody ever gets through the world without that. The exhausting cycle of meeting someone, idealizing them, thinking they might understand me (even though I already know they can’t), and then still being let down, is utterly predictable but crushing every time. Until he said it out loud, “Obviously, there is a God,” it never hit me just how obvious it really was. A life without God, and without a relationship with God, seems to me now like a life spent covering your ears, shouting, “LA LA LA LA, I’M NOT LISTENIIIIING.” The world has become a great circus, a vapid do-whop commercial of tiny things- tiny goals, tiny pleasures, tiny dreams. The world has turned to smoke. The world turns on but now I stand transfixed, smiling at the trees and the sky with slow, warm recognition of who is behind all of this, and who has been here the whole time. After a few months I told John, “I want to be with God, too. I look at the people and the birds and the water and I think - This is the best art the world has ever SEEN. This is my taste. This is who I want to be friends with. God is the greatest artist.”

I’ve spent a lot of time drilling John on his faith. “How do you know what God wants you to do?” “How did you learn to be so disciplined?” “ How can you be SO SURE?”

“I pray a lot,” he answered me.

He prays a lot.

“Don’t try to be fancy,” he advises. “Just talk.”

John is not perfect. I used to think he was. (Meet, idealize, cold shower, repeat.) “There’s nothing more human than hypocrisy,” we concluded once over the phone. The inevitability of error tends to cripple me, but not John… I guess that’s faith. It’ll be the right thing at the right time for the right people because God is backing the enterprise. It sounds completely bananas until you feel it for yourself, until you reach out into the empty room like I did and call to God. That undeniable presence, and how very clearly other-person-ish it is (definitely not idiot me experiencing my idiot self) is the ONLY thing that could get me publicly talking about God at all. Believe me: I am so terrified of social rejection that I would never jeopardize what microscopic coolness I might have gleaned over the years by if I didn’t sincerely believe that it was... well, the most important thing to talk about it. Honestly, I really don’t even know anymore what else there is to talk about. Isn’t God the elephant in the room?

John has one goal: To communicate God’s heart. I don’t think a lesser intention could give anybody such drive as he has. He’s blown up with social media amongst a demographic as un-Christian as it gets, and neither he nor they seem to know what to make of that. Though John is amused, he isn’t exactly surprised. He smiles and says, “My success is inevitable.”

-Lizzy and The Palm

credits

released November 19, 2021

Human Nature (2021)

Written and Performed by John Roseboro
Produced by John Roseboro, David Antonio Garcia, Annie Leeth
Mastered by David Antonio Garcia

Featured Artists:
Lizzy and The Palm (2,10); Brady Young (3, 9); Madeline Ertel (6)

Cover by Lauren Cline

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about

John Roseboro Brooklyn, New York

*feeding the soul*
johnroseboromusic@gmail.com

USA/CAN Booking: jonathan@anniversarygroup.com

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