Battery Kinzie

Album: Helplessness Blues (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • This track premiered on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show on March 22, 2011. The song title refers to Battery Kinzie, a concrete Endicott Period Battery located on Fort Worden, Washington. The Battery was completed in 1910 and transferred to the Coastal Artillery for use on January 10, 1912 at a total cost of $207,832.50. It was named after Civil War veteran BG David Hunter Kinzie, who died in 1904. The guns were dismounted in 1944 toward the end of World War II.
  • You may be wondering why the Fleet Foxes titled this tune after an artillery structure. The explanation is that frontman Robin Pecknold retreated to the disused coastal defense post where the Battery is situated in summer 2009 to write songs for the album and this is one of the tunes that he penned during his sojourn.

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