Pete Yorn’s third full-length studio album, Nightcrawler, was originally released in 2006. On release, the album was described as exploring, and bringing full circle, the day-in-the-life metaphor (morning-day-night) which began with Yorn’s 2001 debut album, musicforthemorningafter, and continued on with 2003’s Day I Forgot.

Nightcrawler by Pete Yorn
Expanded Edition
Quintessential Albums

Pete was been quoted as saying – about Nightcrawler, at release:

“This new record is not so much for the night, but for a later period in my life. The perspective I have comes from having lived more and experienced more.”

Photo by Jim Wright

On its release, Nightcrawler was described as being perhaps the most musically complex and fully realized album of Pete’s career (thus far), a wealth of striking harmonic textures and sophisticated chord shifts framed in a lyric sensibility that’s dark and hopeful and knowing and funny all at once.

Jason Killingsworth, writing in Paste magazine, said that Nightcrawler is

“More daring and challenging than anything Pete Yorn’s done up to now.”

Yorn was also quoted as saying in a 2006 interview with silentuproar.com, in regards to Nightcrawler, and the so-called “trilogy” of albums:

“I didn’t mean like a Star Wars trilogy where it’s one story at all.” Pete expressed, describing the albums as less than a “trilogy”, but more as a diary of sorts; a person gaining new life experiences and simply commenting on them in linear order. “So it’s a sort of continuing analysis of those topics, and the Nightcrawler LP would represent a later phase,”

Nightcrawler included a few special guests. Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) played drums on the track For Us, Butch Walker who produced, and played synth strings, piano, bass, percussion on the track Alive, and Martie Maguire played fiddle and Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks) added backing vocals to the track The Man. The album includes a cover of the Warren Zevon song, Splendid Isolation.

Photo by Jim Wright

An Expanded Edition of Nightcrawler was released to streaming sites in January 2020. The Expanded Editions were only available through exclusive deals with Best Buy and FYE, back in 2006. Eight bonus tracks are available now as part of Nightcrawler – and they are all fantastic.

They are, as follows: “Baby I’m Gone”, “The Party”, “Top Of The World”, “Old Boy”, “Shallow (Friends)”, “Alive” (Radio Version), and “When She’s Mine”.

“When She’s Mine”

Photo by Jim Wright

When Nightcrawler first came into my life the album was what I’d call a grower for me. This was mostly due to the album not being as initially linear as the other two in the “trilogy” had been. At first, the album felt disjointed, weaving in and out of mood and feeling.

I would later love this about Nightcrawler. It would become my favorite aspect of the album. The album would end up feeling like a great mixtape, with mood swings and tempo shifts, highs and lows, and emotional changes that when put together create a flow and intensity that rules the mixtape game, and rules this album. When I hit play I look forward to the different places and stories and feeling each song will take me to, and I find that each time I listen I decide on a new favorite song.

Of all of Pete Yorn’s discography, Nightcrawler is my favorite to drive while listening to and is a MUST HAVE on any road trips I take. It is full of great songs to sing-a-long to, and the ever-changing feelings to match the ever-changing scenery that a good road trip provides – especially along the coast, or through a desert landscape.

Photo by Jim Wright

My Top 5 Nightcrawler Songs
(at least for today)

1. “The Man”

“It’s clear to me,
you’re like the oceans and the light;
try and you’ll remember what you used to be.”

2. “Undercover”

“And you live,
and you try,
I could never find another.
If you walk me to the car park,
I won`t go.”

3. “Maybe I’m Right”

“I let you go,
you never put me out.
Stop it now,
just stop now…
And say, ‘I will’,
say, ‘I will’.”

4. “Broken Bottle”

“And your love is like a broken bottle.”

5. “Ice Age”

“Those Summer years,
have long since gone.
Throw your arms around my neck,
and whisper softly,
of a thing that we will get.”

And, my Top 2 Favorites from the Expanded Edition

1. “The Party”

“In the sun I often,
sit and look at photographs.
Turns it on most often,
don’t need to write a book.”

2. “Shallow (Friends)”

“There’s a reason I’ve been dreaming,
my friends and I are never alone.
Once we show them we can pretend,
most of the time we’re never alone.”