Songfacts®:

• Devendra Banhart comments in the October 2007 edition of Q Magazine: "We recorded this on a ship with a really rad Armenian captain and this half-Gypsy, half Hawaiian first mate. We used a vintage church mic. There's only one in all of Los Angeles."
• The album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder was Banhart's first album to reach the Billboard 200 chart. It was recorded in California's Topanga Canyon, erstwhile home to Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Charles Manson. Devendra Banhart comments in the same Magazine: "It was pretty intense. Everyone at the house suffered shingles and exhaustion. Because our studio was our house! In one way, how convenient. In another way, how difficult. The only incentive to stop working is blacking out. And now it's done and everyone's in a little bit of shock. But y'know, it was fun. The view from my window, man, I could see Neil's house where he recorded After The Gold Rush and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere."