So it's called "Death Letter."
Is anybody a Son House fan in here?
Any Son House fans?
None of you.
Oh, one.
[INAUDIBLE] This starts with a version of a line
from the "Death Letter Blues."
"I get a letter in the morning that said the woman I love
is dead, that she's been trampled by elephants.
I haven't seen her in years, but I
think about her every time I make the bed,
every time I set the table.
I think about how perfect we would have been together.
When I arrive at her house with flowers to pay my respects,
I see her in the window, dusting the sill.
She isn't dead at all.
She shows no signs of being trampled,
even her clothes are starched and pressed.
I knock on the door and she opens it.
You're not dead I say.
Who are you? she says.
What do you mean?
I say.
It's me.
But her eyes just squint at me as if I were microscopic.
Weren't you trampled by elephants?
I say.
No she says.
There aren't even any elephants around here.
When I walk away, flowers in my fist,
I think about all the different kinds of death.
I wish she would have been dead just like the letter said.
There's more truth in that kind of death,
and I felt so much closer to her then."