| John K. Samson – Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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There's an interesting intertextual link with this song and When I Write My Master's Thesis from the same album. In that song, the narrator describes researching the sanatorium the narrator here is in: "Oh the hours I spent in the archives wearing cotton gloves/Shuffling photos from the Ninette Sanatorium Halloween parties/Emaciated ghosts hiding in those curtains' creases." So the two narrators are a hundred years apart, with this song being a letter the other narrator found in his research. |
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| John K. Samson – Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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From an interview on Willamette Weekly (http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-28426-extended_qa_john_k_s.html) So, back in the 1920s and 30s, there used to be a tuberculosis van that would head out from the Ninette Sanatorium and tour towns and take x-rays of citizens, and if you were found to have TB you would often be shipped off on the train to Ninette Manitoba and you wouldn’t know how long you’d be there or if you’d even survive. And at the same time I was studying this town of Riverton Manitoba where there are all these Icelandic immigrants, which is where my family is from. It’s the biggest Icelandic population outside of Iceland. So I invented this fiction about these two brothers whose father has died and they’re taking care of their mother–they saved up enough money to buy a boat–and they’re fishing on Lake Winnipeg, and the older brother gets tuberculosis and is shipped off to Ninette and the younger brother is left there to take care of the family and the business. That’s not what he wants to do with his life, so he writes kind of complaining letters to his older brother in the San saying this isn’t what I want to do. And the dying brother finally writes back and says “well, you’re just going to have to forget about me and forget about the family and get on with your life and go.” |
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| Mike Doughty – Russell Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I don't know this for sure, but I think Russell might be Mike's brother. In his memoir, Mike mentions that his brother (who had mental issues, was once institutionalized and lived off and on out of his car) spent hours writing code on his laptop "in antiquated computer languages like COBOL and FORTRAN." It may just be a reusing of the image, but the tone of how he describes his brother in his memoir and fits with this song. |
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| Mike Doughty – Grey Ghost Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| The song may be lyrically about Jeff Buckley, but the references to Grey Ghost and Stony Lonesome are to faculty housing facilities at West Point Military Academy where his dad was a History professor. | |
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