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Britt Daniel explains the Minneapolis reference in Divine Fits’ ‘Would That Not Be Nice’

by Andrea Swensson

April 04, 2013

Divine Fits, the new project from Britt Daniel, Dan Boeckner, Sam Brown and Alex Fishel, caught out ears here at the Current for a few reasons. Not only do we have a lot of Spoon fans on staff, but one of their first singles, "Would That Not Be Nice," contains an attention-grabbing shout-out to Minneapolis.

Trouble is, no one could tell what Britt Daniel was singing beyond the words, "I wish that I was in Minneapolis." So when Divine Fits stopped by the Current's studio for a live session this afternoon, Mary Lucia kicked things off by asking Daniel to explain the rest of the lyric for us here in Minnesota.

"Well, I thought you might ask this," Daniel said, laughing. "There was a friend of mine who was on tour in Minneapolis, and I was in L.A. writing songs for this record, and I was sort of sequestered; I felt a bit of pressure. And the idea of somebody being on tour just sounded like the greatest thing in the world. If I was in Minneapolis I could go to the 7th St. Entry, I could go to the Target Center, I could hang out with Bill Sullivan, I started listing all these things. And when I started writing the tune, I was referring to a letter that I wrote to her."

"And what is the next line?" Mary Lucia asked. "Is it a reference to a drink?"

"Barbarita—that was a line that Dan insisted stay in," Daniel explained.

"I just thought it sounded cool," added Boeckner. "It sounded mysterious and cool. Wouldn't anybody want to hang out in Minneapolis with Barbarita?"

Well there you have it.

Audio from today's Divine Fits session is archived online here. They ended up playing "Would That Not Be Nice" in addition to their song "Civilian Stripes" and a cover of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Shivers."

 

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