SITE RULES & DEFINITIONS
START HERE
This site is a 29-year catalog of original song lyrics and poetry — 433 songs across 34 albums, plus everything that did not make the albums. It is large, and it uses its own vocabulary. This page is the decoder.
Two things to know before anything else. First, every page has a rating, G through X, and you pick your ceiling at the door. Second, every collection has two pages — one that describes it and one that contains it. Those two ideas explain most of the site.
THE RATING SYSTEM
Every song, album, and page carries one of six ratings. The ratings are applied honestly — they describe the content, they do not market it.
| Rating | What it means | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| G | General — All Audiences No profanity. No explicit content. Accessible to any age. The subject matter may be serious — loss, longing, identity — but the language is accessible and the imagery is not explicit. A G-rated song is something you could read aloud to anyone. | 31 pages |
| PG | Parental Guidance Suggested Mild language. Mature themes handled with restraint. Nothing graphic, nothing explicit. The subject matter is real, but the presentation is measured. | 7 pages |
| PG-13 | Parents Strongly Cautioned Stronger language and themes. Not explicit, but honest about adult reality. Real emotional weight, adult situations, and language that does not sanitize the experience. This is where most of the catalog lives. | 174 pages |
| R | Restricted — Adult Themes Explicit language, dark subject matter, or mature content requiring adult context. Profanity, violence, addiction, sexuality, trauma. | 6 pages |
| NC-17 | Adults Only Content that goes past R. Not for anyone under 18, and the label is meant literally rather than as a marketing flourish. | 5 pages |
| X | Explicit — Everything The full unfiltered catalog. Explicit language and subject matter, nothing held back and nothing softened. | 16 pages |
THE RULES
As of September 1, 2026, every lyric in this catalog is free to use — in your own songs, recordings, and projects — as long as Tom Jensen is credited by name. That is the whole license. No fee, no form, no negotiation.
G means genuinely all-ages. X means explicitly mature. Nothing is rated up to seem edgier or rated down to seem safer. Every tier in between marks a real distinction.
Choosing PG-13 shows you PG-13 and everything below it — G and PG included. It is a ceiling, not a filter. Choosing X shows you the entire site.
The rating system exists so you can navigate freely, not so anything gets buried. Every page is reachable at the right tier; the Bouncer just decides where you start.
No page without a home. If a page exists, it is in exactly one of the 14 wings and its siblings are listed on it.
One Universe page for what it is about, one All-In-One for the actual words. If you cannot find the lyrics, you are on the Universe page — look for the All-In-One.
ALL-IN-ONE vs UNIVERSE PAGE
This is the single most confusing thing on the site, so here it is side by side. Every Set List and Song List has both.
UNIVERSE PAGE
- The five-tab reference page
- Full Summary · Quick Take
- Themes & Mood · Track Guide
- Simple Description
- Does NOT contain the lyrics
- Shorter — a few pages of context, no full texts
The back of the album sleeve. Tells you what it is about and who it sounds like.
ALL-IN-ONE (AIO)
- Full text of every lyric
- Trigger warning
- Quick Guide
- Cross-reference block — every other place on the site this collection appears
- Social bar
- Longer — 2 to 4 times the Universe page
The lyric booklet inside. This is where you actually read the words.
THE GLOSSARY
ALL-IN-ONE (AIO)
The deep page for a single collection. An AIO carries the full text of every lyric in that collection, plus the trigger warning, the Quick Guide, and the cross-reference block showing every other place on the site that collection appears. It also carries the social bar. If you want to actually read the words, you want the AIO.
UNIVERSE PAGE
The reference page for the same collection. A Universe page is the five-tab summary: Full Summary, Quick Take, Themes & Mood, Track Guide, and Simple Description. It tells you what a collection is about and who it sounds like — it does not print the lyrics. Think of it as the back of the album sleeve; the AIO is the lyric booklet inside.
SET LIST
One of the 24 numbered set list collections. Set Lists are the larger body of the catalog. Each one is a themed grouping of tracks with its own title — Set List 9 is "Thralls of the Flame," Set List 1 is "Glass Half Something."
SONG LIST
One of the 10 numbered song list collections. Same structure as a Set List — numbered, titled, with a Universe page and an AIO — but a separate series. Song List 1 is "The Last Man Singing."
WING
A section of the site. Every page belongs to exactly one of 14 wings, and every page shows its wing in the grouping block near the top, with sibling pages listed beside it. Wings are how the site is organized structurally — the Switchboards wing, the 35-Section Book wing, the Set List Universe wing, and so on.
SWITCHBOARD
A jumping-off page full of links. The rating switchboards (G through X) each show you the slice of the site open at your rating and nothing above it. The Home Switchboard is the full map. A switchboard is a door, not a destination.
RATINGS BOUNCER
The entry gate. Before you go anywhere, the Bouncer asks what rating you want to see, and hands you the matching switchboard. It is the front door of the whole site.
THE ICEBERG OF LYRICS
The deep-dive entry point into the full body of lyrics — the "start digging" link that appears in the header of every page. The name is the point: what is on the surface is a fraction of what is underneath.
MUSICAL BASEBALL CARDS
A card for each of 391 artists, laid out like a trading card, with a halftone-treated photo color-coded by category. Spread across Pages A through E plus a Hub that explains how the five pages relate.
THE 12 BATONS
A tournament bracket campaign built on top of the Baseball Cards. Twelve categories — one for every job on the stage, from bass to producers to one-person bands. Each category runs two brackets: the TIME MACHINE, seeded oldest to youngest, and the TITLE FIGHT, seeded by pure power where birth year buys you nothing.
ERA BRACKETS
The decade version of the same tournament. Seven decade brackets, 1950s through 2010s, each crowning one champion.
THE UNIFICATION CARD
The cross-decade bout. Seven decade brackets produce seven champions who all call themselves the best, and they cannot all be right. The Unification Card is the page that links every decade to every other decade and poses the question. The bout itself is Tom's call to book.
THE 35-SECTION BOOK
The written companion to the catalog — a 38-page wing running from the Dedication through the Alphabetical Index. It holds the Rolling Stone-style reviews, the business plan, the manifesto and copyright notice, the themes and profanity listings, and the back-of-book indexes.
THE LEFT OUT EDITION
Everything that did not make the 34 released albums — 1,325 pieces sorted into six tiers by how finished they are: FINISHED, BIG CHUNKS, A FEW STANZAS, 7-OR-LESS, SINGLE LYRICS, and SONG IDEAS.
QUICK GUIDE
The condensed at-a-glance version of a collection — what is on it, how it is rated, what it is about. Quick Guides appear inside AIO pages and as standalone G-to-X guide pages.
READ MY STUFF (BEST TO WORST)
Tom's own ranking of the catalog, ordered best to worst and broken into ten pages of fifty. It is a self-assessment, not a popularity chart.
TOE TO TOE
The comparison project — Tom's catalog set directly against the greatest albums and songs of all time, matched up track by track.
THE MASTER NAV SUITE
Six tools for moving through the site: Master Index (searchable table of every page with a copy-link button), Site Navigator (everything grouped by wing), Quick Links (flat A-Z), Hub Directory (wings with rating breakdowns), Fast Scroll (jump bar), and Category Directory (browse by rating). Each one exists in seven versions: ALL, plus one per rating tier.
THE 14 WINGS
Every page belongs to exactly one wing, shown in the grouping block near the top of that page with its siblings listed beside it.
| Wing | What is in it | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Core & Mission | Home, mission statement, the Bouncer, the rating guide | 5 |
| Nav Tools & Indexes | Indexes, site maps, the Iceberg, fast-scroll tools | 15 |
| Switchboards | The six rating switchboards plus the home switchboard | 13 |
| Baseball Cards, Batons, Eras & Tourneys | 391 artist cards, the 12 Batons, 7 Era brackets, the Unification Card | 35 |
| How I Got Here | The long-form origin story, clean and explicit versions | 6 |
| 35-Section Book | Dedication through Alphabetical Index — reviews, manifesto, business plan | 38 |
| Videos & Downloads | YouTube links, lyric videos, downloadable books | 7 |
| Song List Universe | The 10 Song List reference pages | 10 |
| Set List Universe | The 24 Set List reference pages | 24 |
| Song List All-In-Ones | The 10 Song List full-lyric pages | 10 |
| Set List All-In-Ones | The 24 Set List full-lyric pages | 24 |
| Business & Money | Business plan, revenue streams, merch, support links | 11 |
| Left Out Edition | The six tiers of everything not on the 34 albums | 6 |
| Misc & Coming Soon | Everything else, including pages still being built | 36 |
STILL LOST?
Three doors, depending on what you want:
Want to browse safely? Ratings Bouncer — pick your ceiling, get a switchboard.
Want to find one specific thing? Master Index — searchable table of all 240 pages.
Want to just start reading? The Iceberg of Lyrics — start digging.
Site Rules & Definitions VOL1 — 07.29.26