Search - Long Woodson :: Girl Upstairs

Girl Upstairs is a concept album that chronicles the lives of three misfits - a stalker, a stripper, and a semi-successful musician and how their lives are intertwined in an unlikely love triangle. Gus is hopelessly in love with a stripper, Brit, who lives upstairs from him in their small-town Texas apartment complex. The irony of their living situation is that Brit doesn t even know Gus? name. For her part, Brit is excessively devoted to her musician boyfriend, Dutch, who rewards her devotion by refusing to say the words I love you. Gus, the protagonist of the story, hangs on to his sanity by a thread as he is confronted by the reality of the sounds of Dutch making love to Brit in the room above him at night. But the delusional, protective part of Gus? brain is convinced that Brit?s love can and will always be solely reserved for him. Each song on the album was written from the point of view of one of the three characters, as demonstrated by the three sets of handwriting on the insert booklet. The cartoonish style of the album artwork was intended to represent the lack of lucidity of Gus? mental state, as well as to create a whimsical feel of innocence in contrast to what is in reality a darkly-themed album.