Songfacts®:

• Monsters of Folk are an alternative rock band comprising Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes, and indie singer-songwriter Matt (M.). Ward. The foursome originally got together in 2004 during the participants' collegial 2004 tour but it took them five years to complete their self-titled album. During its recording the band swapped instruments and shared vocal duties. Mogis told Express Night Out about the recording of this song: "It was probably the most fun to do in the studio, that song is actually [almost] completely live. There's two keyboard overdubs. Jim's vocal is a scratch vocal that's why he counts off. We all chuckled about it, like that's cool, let's leave it that way. Conor's drum take is live, my bass is live, Matt's guitar is live. Matt did a piano overdub and Jim did that wah overdub. Outside of that Conor had this memory of like smashing the drums and cymbals and he looked over at Jim - he went into one of his high loud voices things - and Conor felt like part of My Morning Jacket and was super excited. That one had this feeling of when you start your first band. Maybe you just took mushrooms and are at band practice in your garage. It has that innocence of just playing even if you're not that good at it. It felt like a first band experience playing that song."