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A special edition of 250 copies, featuring a numbered and signed copy of the book presented in a custom slipcase.

ISBN 978-1-59005-569-4

Hardcover, 8.5 x 11 inches, 108 pages, 12 duotone plates

You got to open your life to some better things 
You got to open your soul like a door 

Terry Allen’s landmark concept album, released on vinyl in 1975, was a multimedia production that combined an epic Western narrative with finely detailed, fantastical lithographs to create a “better thing” that still remains fresh 47 years later. The Juarez lyrics, published here for the first time in narrative form, are paired with a series of new etchings by the artist created specifically for this project. The etchings reflect Allen’s intensely creative imagination and are a superb counterpoint to the strange and compelling storyline of his Juarez song cycle. 

In a 2019 interview with the LA Louver Gallery, Allen recalls asking himself, “How can I put music and drawing together? How can I make it be one thing?” This longing to combine art forms into “one thing” has informed a body of work that includes 13 albums of original songs, radio and theatrical performances, painting, sculpture, and art installations. The Juarez storyline is a tangle of longing, loneliness, violence, and the endless, competing human desires to leave, to stay, to escape, to turn back. Two couples – Jabo and Chic, Sailor and Alice – are young, impetuous, and imperiled by their rash, even criminal, actions, and yet their story remains as forceful and vigorous as it did when he first wrote it. “Juarez is an ongoing project that began in the late sixties, runs to the present, and I have no doubt is still lurking in some form or another in the future. It has probably instigated and/or informed everything I’ve ever made,” said Allen.

Terry Allen was raised in Lubbock, Texas, graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, California, and has worked as an artist and musician since 1966. He has received numerous awards and honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Art Fellowships. His songs have been recorded by such diverse artists as: Bobby Bare, Guy Clark, Little Feat, Robert Earl Keen, David Byrne, Colin Gilmore, Doug Sahm, Ricky Nelson, Cracker, and Lucinda Williams. Allen’s works are held in major private and public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the L.A. County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, and the Houston Museum of Fine Art.