WEBVTT

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So it's called "Death Letter."

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Is anybody a Son
House fan in here?

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Any Son House fans?

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None of you.

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Oh, one.

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[INAUDIBLE] This starts
with a version of a line

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from the "Death Letter Blues."

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"I get a letter in the morning
that said the woman I love

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is dead, that she's been
trampled by elephants.

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I haven't seen her
in years, but I

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think about her every
time I make the bed,

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every time I set the table.

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I think about how perfect
we would have been together.

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When I arrive at her house with
flowers to pay my respects,

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I see her in the window,
dusting the sill.

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She isn't dead at all.

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She shows no signs
of being trampled,

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even her clothes are
starched and pressed.

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I knock on the door
and she opens it.

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You're not dead I say.

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Who are you? she says.

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What do you mean?

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I say.

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It's me.

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But her eyes just squint at
me as if I were microscopic.

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Weren't you trampled
by elephants?

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I say.

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No she says.

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There aren't even any
elephants around here.

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When I walk away,
flowers in my fist,

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I think about all the
different kinds of death.

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I wish she would have been
dead just like the letter said.

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There's more truth in
that kind of death,

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and I felt so much
closer to her then."

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