Songfacts®:

• The Big Pink close their second album, Future This, with this ode to a lost friend. The most personal song on the record, it was at least part inspired by the death of Tarka, the brother of The Big Pink's Milo Cordell, who hung himself in 2008.
• In the past Cordell has let his Big Pink partner Robbie Furze take on any vocal duties. However, he steps up to the mic on this song to read from the opening paragraph of Italian-American author John Fante's 1939 novel, Ask The Dust, which is set during the Great Depression-era in Los Angeles. Cordell explained to Spin magazine: "That book just means a lot to me and was given to me by someone I love very much. It just seemed to be apt for that part. It has to do with 77 different ways to say goodbye, which is how the chorus goes."