I released the original version of this song on 5/2/2014, and wanted it included on an album but couldn't find a suitable spot for it until now. I remixed the song completely so that it would fit, sonically, with the rest of this album.

I'd wanted to write a song about Oliver Reed for a while, but just never got around to it. My instinct, being the chucklemonkey that I am, was to make a raucous drinking song called Drinking With Oliver Reed, because he was a notorious alcoholic in addition to being a legendary actor. His last round, the one that killed him during the filming of Gladiator, was 8 pints of lager, 12 double rums, and half a bottle of whiskey. In one sitting. It would be an epic drinking song.

When I finally made the call to start writing, I decided to do some research. I watched interview after interview with Oliver, culminating in one train wreck of an interview on the David Letterman show where it seemed he drunkenly thought David would be making fun of him and so he pre-emptively made an ass out of himself. It was surreal. I realized, watching these interviews, that his alcoholism did more than kill him, it cut away at his credibility. It turned him into a joke in some other people's eyes.

Suddenly, I didn't want to write the song anymore. I didn't want Oliver Reed to *be* the joke. I wanted him to be the path to a joke. So I put it aside.

Earlier this year a friend of mine died. We weren't close, as friends go--many of my friends were much, much closer to him--but I respected him immensely and he was always a supporter of mine and a genuinely great guy. He was a mandolin player. It so happened that my mother-in-law bought me a mandolin last Christmas and I was learning to play. While writing songs for February Album Writing Month, everything just fell into place, and this came out. No longer the path to a "joke joke," but more the path to a darkly humorous salute to both Oliver and all friends lost.

I'm not proficient at the mandolin. This was really my first time playing one. I'm not accustomed to writing elegies or dirges. I'm not accustomed to friends dying, for that matter, which has happened more than once this year. And it sucks.

So in honor of the anniversary of Oliver Reed's death, I offered this song up to the world. I wanted to say enjoy it, but that doesn't seem right. I hope it touches you, though.