Jenny isn’t yet escaping in “Cleaning Crew,” but she’s telling you about how to get out.

Track: “Cleaning Crew”
Album: Jenny From Thebes

Most of Jenny From Thebes is about the explosion or how we get there. A little of it, though, is about Jenny and the other character from “Source Decay,” a song I have heard literally hundreds of times and not really considered from this angle. We find those two in “Cleaning Crew” and we imagine the life that led to someone watching for Jenny’s postcards.

Jenny had to leave to send postcards. This is what happened before she left. She told someone to “shake free,” maybe, and to “ask about [me]” in Portland. But both of them had to know she wasn’t really going to Portland, they weren’t really going to shake free, and all of that was really metaphorical, anyway. You getting out of Jenny’s house requires more than a bus ticket.

Jenny is trying to get one step ahead. Jenny has people she cares about, even if she isn’t willing to say that. Jenny will write to you, but not in a way that you’ll really understand.