dev-burn asked: I realize this was a very long time ago, but is there a story behind the woman speaking Spanish over your cover of "I'm so lonesome I could cry" and was there ever a version without her?

That was Leti, my girlfriend at the time. We were at the miniature golf course and they had a “your voice over a song” booth where you went in and recorded to generic karaoke-style versions of songs. I was pretty into the booth but it was ten bucks a go, so I only ever used it three times. I’m fairly certain that the version of “The Eternal Flame” recorded by me and a couple of exchange-student friends from Germany is lost to history, again demonstrating that God is kind: it seemed hilarious at the time.

So, no, there was never a version without Leti, we just recorded it one day at the miniature golf course and I forget whether I originally even intended it to be on the tape - I don’t think I did; I remember giving Dennis the tape ending with “Going to Alaska,” which I recall thinking of as a good closer – I like for the last song on the album to be a good one, it’s been an aesthetic priority of mine since before I was making records. But Dennis had some other stuff I’d given him, and he appended some of it to the release – that Congress song and the “I’m So Lonesome” thing from the golf course.