I first saw this in the last.fm description for the song, and after some google-ing stumbled across an article that suggests it is (at least partially) about Vic Chesnutt:
Poignantly, Linkous would add “borrowed lines” from his dear friend Vic Chesnutt to the tenth track, ‘Little Fat Baby.’ The Vic Chesnutt song in question was ‘Myrtle’. The following is ‘Myrtle’s last verse:
“I’m not an optimist, I’m not a realist
I might be a subrealist but I can’t substantiate
It was bigger than me and I felt like a sick child
Dragged by a donkey, through the myrtle”
(–‘Myrtle’, taken from Vic Chesnutt’s 1996 album ‘About to Choke’)
Linkous would incorporate ‘Myrtle’ (across each verse) into ‘Little Fat Baby’:
“He got dragged by a donkey
Through the dust and the myrtle
But he was once a little fat baby”
(–‘Little Fat Baby’, taken from the Sparklehorse 2001 album ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’)
I first saw this in the last.fm description for the song, and after some google-ing stumbled across an article that suggests it is (at least partially) about Vic Chesnutt:
Poignantly, Linkous would add “borrowed lines” from his dear friend Vic Chesnutt to the tenth track, ‘Little Fat Baby.’ The Vic Chesnutt song in question was ‘Myrtle’. The following is ‘Myrtle’s last verse:
“I’m not an optimist, I’m not a realist I might be a subrealist but I can’t substantiate It was bigger than me and I felt like a sick child Dragged by a donkey, through the myrtle” (–‘Myrtle’, taken from Vic Chesnutt’s 1996 album ‘About to Choke’)
Linkous would incorporate ‘Myrtle’ (across each verse) into ‘Little Fat Baby’:
“He got dragged by a donkey Through the dust and the myrtle But he was once a little fat baby” (–‘Little Fat Baby’, taken from the Sparklehorse 2001 album ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’)
http://fracturedair.com/2013/01/15/the-last-waltz-mark-linkous/