Songfacts®:

• The Chicago-born artist Derek Erdman is known primarily for his vibrantly colored paintings, his contributions to Seattle's alternative newspaper, The Stranger, and his alter ego Rap Master Maurice. Regarding the latter, clients pay a $17 fee for him to call a target and deliver a rap.
  
  Erdman returned to his native Chicago in September 2017 after many years as a loveably anarchic presence in Seattle. The move was a huge disappointment to Death Cab for Cutie frontman, Seattle native Ben Gibbard. He wrote this song about the city's loss of the eccentric artist.
  
  "He's just a wonderful, joyous human being, this totally sardonic and irreverent prankster, and his sense of humor became very much a part of the city," Gibbard told The Independent. "We weren't super close, but his apartment was on the walk to our local co-op, where we do our grocery shopping. I'd look into his window, and the walls were always covered in his artwork, really colorful, gorgeous stuff. It was so comforting to see that, and know that he was in the back doing something crazy, or making something beautiful. When he left, it had a profound effect on me, because his spirit is something that we're losing in Seattle by the day. There's fewer apartments filled with art, and more and more filled with Amazon badges."