Theric Jepson's introduction to Thubrina: Naturally, when I want to visit Thubstack, I start typing thubs into my browser, but if I foolishly assume that by now surely my browser knows where I'm going and just hit enter rather than deliberately choosing thmazing dot substack dot et cetera, Firefox will helpfully suggest I watch the video for Sabrina Carpenter's "Thumbs," a song I know only from this context. (I did finally listen to "Thumbs" once, just to see what Firefox thought I should be giving my attention to, but I can't remember anything about it now.) I have heard her "Espresso" enough times that I could probably recognize it (probably?), but that's the extent of my knowledge regarding Miss Carpenter's catalogue. This isn't me being a snob or anything. I just figure she gets enough love from enough people that she doesn't need me listening to her on Spotify in order to make her car payment. Perhaps I am wrong and her Range Rover is getting repossessed as we speak because I insist on being a hipster. If so, I apologize.

Anyway, in early June I was with some twenty-somethings and they were expressing amazement that Sabrina Carpenter was already releasing a new album and how could she possibly a) have anything new to say or b) the time to develop new aspects to her musical vocabulary. They were looking forward to discovering answers to these questions.

Me, since I knew nothing about her previous work, had no way to hypothesize regarding her new work. But then it occurred to me: Just as countless millions searching for Thubstack have been redirected to "Thumbs" and thus become Sabrina Carpenter fans, perhaps she owes me and I should redirect some of her traffic to me. And so this small volume in which I rewrite her new album Man's Best Friend, song by song.

I've taken a number of different tacks while rewriting, which you can read about in the appendix.

Like Sabrina, Jesus was a carpenter, and he was born before me, even. So to make her and I seem more like contemporaries, I've illustrated this collection with details from oldtimey black-and-white life-of-Jesus illustrations.

Anyway, come for the Sabrina, stay for the Theric (or the Jesus, if you prefer).

It's very nice to meet you, young people.

----------th---