"He finds a place he can afford and calls it home. He brings a suitcase full of clothes and a house plant. He brings a box of books he's been hoping to read, a small collection of CDs and records, and a set of speakers...He brings earplugs. He brings ramen, he brings instant soup....He brings a desk he found on a curb, a dresser he found on a curb, a chair. He brings bedbugs."

 

After letting him (and the reader) settle, she throws the story's punch:

 

"...They open a coffee shop down the block. They open ground for a new luxury condo. They open fire on a teenager. They open the bulletproof window at the Chinese restaurant. They open houses to prospective buyers. They open wallets and drain them dry."

 

 

It is difficult to decide whether the lyrics or her essays, which accompany each song, are more poetic. Rohe writes with purpose. When asked about the challenge of writing, she said that the difficult work is "to find exactly the right way to say exactly that thing that needs to be said at exactly the right time!"  It is a skill, it seems, this singer/songwriter perseveres to hone, merging the timely with the timeless.

 

Accessible but quietly cerebral best defines first impressions of Rohe. These are characteristics both of her as a person and as a songwriter.  As a poet and lyricist, Jean Rohe is an independent thinker  with a will for interdependence.  She exhibits a keen eye for the particular and an equally clear appreciation of the general picture. In choosing words and concept, the songwriter frames specific moments and thoughts that are universally relatable, but then forges a detour when the edge of predictability has been reached.

 

She frequently tugs on the muslin of conventional belief, and in the process exposes just enough to render the illusion of reality lost, though not altogether obsolete. It is this fabric of interwoven realism and imagination that makes Jean Rohe & The End of the World Show             particularly interesting.