Lusitania

I'm pretty sure that I'm the dumb boy in this song - literally. I'll tell you the story: you can decide. Back in 2009, St Vincent opened up for Andrew Bird in Indianapolis. It was the beginning of their tour and pretty much the first time that they'd met.

I'm a big A.B. fan going back to 2001, so I went with my friends. We walked in halfway through St Vincent's set and were like "whoa" as Annie Clark started splitting the sky open with her guitar.

Anyway, after the show my friends and I went to another concert at Radio Radio in Fountain Square: some band, can't remember who - we just wanted to support the scene. After about an hour, Andrew Bird shows up with his band and St Vincent in tow - instant star shock. We tried to play it cool for a few minutes, but we were giggling 14 yo girls on the inside. So we go up to him and try to strike up a clumsy conversation. I mentioned that we had met before in this very bar back in 2001... yada yada yada. Awkward.

At this point, I notice Annie Clark standing near listening to us; so I turn to her and say "you were amazing too. My buddy and I walked in halfway through your set and were like 'whoa'..." and we drifted off into our own conversation as my friend continued to speak with Andrew.

Annie and I decide to go smoke a cigarette, so we go out front to the sidewalk. It's raining, so we kinda sit on a ledge close to the door, under the awning and the buzzing lights - kind of in the way, but it wasn't too crowded. We light up and start talking about music and Sufjan Stevens and stuff [I thought he was from Nebraska or something - he's from Brooklyn. TIL]. Eventually, we get into this meta-conversation about how strange and silly it is that I can have a completely normal and relaxed conversation with her - who I had never even heard of before that night - and how clumsy and awkward I was talking with Andrew Bird.

At this point, I should explain that Annie Clark is a very lovely person with huge Disney-princess eyes and we're deep in conversation - so she has my complete attention. I spoke of the formative effect that Andrew Bird's music had on me and how it's been part of the soundtrack of my life for the last decade or so.

I said "I wouldn't have been this nervous meeting Bob Dylan because Bob Dylan's music doesn't mean as much to me as Andrew Bird's does AND OH MY GOD HE'S SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO US ISN'T HE?"

He was. He had sidled up to Annie a few minutes before, and I was so engaged with her that I hadn't noticed until just then. He heard everything.

So, the second part of the song, Annie's part, is pretty much a straightforward, though poetic, telling of what happened that night. Andrew Bird's part of the song - the sinking ships part - is trickier. We didn't talk about ships that I remember (though we could have - I was in the Navy and gave a lecture on the Spanish-American War in college).

Assuming that the first half of the song was inspired by the same event as the second (a big assumption) I would hazard a guess that I touched a nerve. How do you deal with people who idolize you? What does having adoring fans do to one's ego and self-identity? What kind of internal conflicts might that create? What kind of fear? Trying to stay humble and grounded when people are putting you on a pedestal. Where do you go from there? I think that this might have been an issue for Andrew earlier in his career: something he had come to terms with or compartmentalized -"we don't study this war no more." And then I came and re-opened that wound.

Or maybe I cock-blocked him - who knows?