Temporary Ground

Album: Lazaretto (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This Honky-Tonk tune finds White joined by guest fiddler and singer Lillie Mae Rische. He told NPR: "I did this one with the whole band, and then we asked her if she would sing on it later on, after I had put vocals down. She just really, for some reason, exemplifies freedom in all ways to me. She grew up in a band. She was on stage when she was three years old and traveling with her family band, playing music on different stages and fairs and folk festivals and things like that, and she still sort of lives that way. It just seems like she breathes music all day long, and that seems like total freedom to me. She was very inspiring to me for that."
  • White wrote this heartbroken Dixieland-like tune after reading about giant lily pads able to support the weight of human beings (the first lyric is, "On a floating lily island").

    White told NPR: "I had read in National Geographic about these giant Queen Victoria lily pads that could hold up to a hundred pounds, so a person could actually float on a lily pad, which seems like an Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass kind of idea. So coincidentally, two ideas about freedom, and the word 'lily' together."

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