Rasputina (band) - Song Inspirations

Song Inspirations

Creager is a self-proclaimed history buff and often bases the lyrics for the band on that historical knowledge.

These include:

• Thanks for the Ether
  • "My Little Shirtwaist Fire" is based on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.
  • "The Donner Party" discusses the Donner Party, a group of American pioneers traveling to California who encountered a series of mishaps and resorted to cannibalism. The track compares them to the colonial pilgrims.
  • "Howard Hughes" is about the eccentric billionaire aviator.
• How We Quit the Forest
  • "Rose K." is about the matriarch of the Kennedy family, who had a stroke at age 94 and was cared for at the Kennedy Compound by private nurses and staff. Although Melora jokingly refers to this as her "Alzheimer's Song" on A Radical Recital, Rose was not known to have suffered from Alzheimer's disease. In concert, Melora also frequently introduces the song by referring to Rose's decision to have her daughter Rosemary Kennedy lobotomized at the age of 23, to calm her alleged mood swings.
  • "Herb Girls of Birkenau" describes the victims of human experiments in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, from the point of view of a powerless witness.
  • "Diamond Mind" is a satire inspired by the music of a De Beers diamond commercial that uses music composed by Karl Jenkins, which he later used as a theme of the orchestral piece Palladio.
• Cabin Fever
  • "Rats" is about the 16th century decision by the then Pope to declare the semi-aquatic capybara as fish for Catholics to eat during Lent.
• Poor Relations in the Shed Out Back (Frustration Plantation bonus disc)
  • "Yellow Fever" is about an outbreak of yellow fever in New Orleans in the summer of 1853.
• Oh Perilous World
  • "1816, The Year Without a Summer" is about the Little Ice Age. The year 1816 had an unusual weather pattern (due to the volcano Mount Tambora erupting) and was known as the Year Without a Summer. The song also makes mention of author Mary Shelley writing her famous novel Frankenstein, Freemasons and Benjamin Franklin.
  • "Choose Me For Champion" is about islanders' sufferings due to Western European invasions and mentions Thursday October Christian I.
  • "Cage in a Cave" is about Thursday Christian's father, Fletcher Christian, an 18th century man who was one of the mutineers from the Mutiny on the Bounty in Tahiti.
  • "Incident in a Medical Clinic" is about the disease Schistosomiasis (also known as Snail-fever).
  • "Child Soldier Rebellion" makes mention of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda's usage of children as soldiers.
  • "Oh Bring Back the Egg Unbroken" is about the Tangata manu competition of the inhabitants from Easter Island.
  • "We Stay Behind" is about the people who stayed behind in New Orleans during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. An article from the AP by Allen G. Breed exclaims, "I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," about watching the warehouses burn. "People are just not themselves."