The planet "Tralfamadore" features prominently in Vonnegut's writing, particularly his best known work "Slaughter-House Five." And before I decided to open the album with the "Last Folk Singers" thing, this piece was going to serve as an overture. And I know that an overture wouldn't normally be at track 2...but what the hell else was I supposed to call it? It's instrumental and contains themes from elsewhere on the album. It's an overture. So...in case you haven't figured it out... Tralfamadore + Overture = TralfamadOverture.

There are a couple of things worth mentioning. I'll let you figure out what most of the themes are for yourself, but there's a section before the "You've Got to Laugh" section that seems like it SHOULD be one of the themes from elsewhere on the album, but it isn't.  That's because I ended up scrapping the song it was referencing late into the project. I had a song that was just a spoken word essay on Humanism that while it would have been an excellent thematic fit, it didn't work out musically. I already had the song "Now It's the Woman's Turn" (which I liked better) and having two spoken word tracks on the album seemed like overkill. It also just didn't quite work musically...it sounded too much like a Drive-By Truckers spoken-word piece. And while I don't mind wearing my influences on my sleeve, this sounded more like outright theft. So it was out.

However, there's a small Easter Egg in that same segment. The guitar melody there is somewhat close to a phone number familiar to my family. I won't say which one on the Internet. But it doesn't really matter...phone numbers aren't really in 440 tuning anyway, so the closest you can get is an approximation.

Anyway...I had a lot of fun putting this song together and I hope you like it.