Electro-Shock Blues

Though much of the album is, on its surface, bleak, its underlying message is that of coping with some of life's most difficult occurrences. The record begins with "Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor", a sparse piece composed of one of his deceased sister's final diary entries. Later, the album's emotional climax is reached in two tracks: "Climbing to the Moon", which draws upon E's experiences visiting his sister at a mental health facility shortly before her death; and "Dead of Winter", a song about his mother's painful radiation treatment and slow succumbing. The album's last song, entitled "P.S. You Rock My World", is a hopeful bookend to "Elizabeth", containing subtly humorous lyrics that describe, among other things, an elderly woman at a gas station honking her car at E, incorrectly assuming he is the attendant, and E's decision that "maybe it's time to live". According to the Eels official website, the song "Baby Genius" is about E's father, Dr. Hugh Everett III, a quantum physicist who authored the Many Worlds Theory. "Baby Genius" has, as the basis for its melody, the carol "O Sanctissima". At the time of the album's recording, the only official Eels members were E himself and drummer Butch Norton, as Tommy Walter had left the band. Therefore, the recording features guest appearances by T-Bone Burnett, Lisa Germano, Grant Lee Phillips and Jon Brion. The Daniel Johnston song "Living Life" was played often on the Electro-Shock Blues tour, eventually seeing a studio release in 2004 on the tribute compilation Discovered Covered – The Late Great Daniel Johnston.