Give It To Me Rusty is a musical collaboration with Seattle's downtown homeless population. Since 2008, Noah Dassel and Aaron Zuege have adapted the stories of the homeless they meet face to face on the streets of Seattle.
Give It To Me Rusty began when Dassel and Zuege needed a convenient place to play music after meeting in the summer of 2008. Occidental Park was the midpoint of their work locations and they decided to meet at the trolley stop to work on songs together. Things developed quicly and the curious passersbys, many folks living on the streets, soon began to offer their own lyrics and life stories. The jam sessions began to develop into a project.
People had their own lyrics, and the duo was happy to cobble together accompanying chords. The first was "Lost Train" by Jim, a 60-something visiting seattle from colorado for a new ALS treatment. "i don't really need detox, i just go to meet the people" he said while he and a friend waited for the drunk wagon. Jim then went into pitching brutal black and white imagery about life, death, and and the battle of the train losing it's tracks.
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"how do you lose a train on the tracks
you're always thinking about going
to something you left back home,
to something you left back home..."
"i shot a man and went to prison
for sixteen years.
what did i learn?
i really can't say."
On the next visit to the benches of the Square, Jim's pal, Dean, approached wearing a surf naked shirt and drinkin a tall boy. He was in remarkably better condition than our first meeting and a song emerged..."Give It To Me Rusty", about being a woman's secondhand man.
listen to the birthing of the song here:
