Swing Lo Magellan by Dirty Projectors

Album: Swing Lo Magellan (2012)

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This is the title track of the American Experimental Rock band Dirty Projectors' sixth album. Frontman Dave Longstreth and his bandmates spent nearly 12 months recording and writing the set in an isolated house in the rural solitude of Delaware County, New York.
Longstreth told Tonedeaf.com about this tune: "I think this song could be about trying to figure out the functions of one's intuitions in a world that's fully mapped," he said. "What are the use of intuitions on a globe that's totally circumscribed. Also I'm actually obsessed with the internet, so the album is in a lot of ways about the internet, about how it changes the way we think and write."
The album cover features Longstreth and love-interest/Dirty Projector Amber Coffman with another man near the property that they were recording at. Longstreth told Pitchfork: "That was our one neighbor. His name is Gary. He was just a really nice guy. The longer we were there, the better we got to know him. He would come down and just hang out for a while. My brother took that photo. I don't remember it being taken, but afterwards we were looking through photos and I just liked it a lot."
On September 20, 1519, Portuguese commander Ferdinand Magellan set sail with five ships and 250 men for the East Indies turning west rather than the usual east route. Three years later one ship limped home with just 18 on board, the first people to have sailed round the world. Magellan was not amongst them, having been killed in the Philippines.

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