colinmeloy

She's a dental hygienist, living in Tampa. Has a good practice. Moderately happy marriage. Likes embroidery and Zumba.

Joking. No, the baby dies in utero when Margaret and William drown in the river. Sorry.

Like a french dairy maid, awash in the scent of newly harvested provencal sage.

1.Nick Offerman is a gentleman of the truest sort. Let no one tell you otherwise, and it is unlikely that someone would. He'd come to the shoot after doing two other projects that day and was a phenomenal champ.

1. Definitely the latter. The narrator of that song is an asshole and a sociopath.

Yeah, definitely, the books I read tend to find their way into the songs. Some times more overtly than others. I'd been reading Paul Fussell's "Great War and Modern Memory" around the time I was writing songs for "Her Majesty the Decemberists," hence all the WWI-era sexual innuendo. And Dylan Thomas. Hence all the early 20th c Welsh sexual innuendo (steamy). Also "You'll Not Feel the Drowning" was a line stolen from Bruce Chatwin's "Patagonia." I could go on.

I don't think it means to cancel out Summersong at all. I'm still quite attached that song. I think it was a sort of jab at myself and my songwriting at a time when I needed to do that. I'd also always loved Morrissey's refrain from the end of "disappointed" where he sings: "This is the last song I will ever sing / No, I've changed my mind again..." There's something really therapeutic, I find, in making fun of yourself.

ADDENDUM: It's also not just a response to the song Summersong, but to all of the endless summersongs I've thrown into the world: June Hymn, July July etc etc. Like me saying to myself: jesus, man, get off it!