The End: Springtime Carnivore (aka Greta Morgan) on Endings and Death

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The End: Springtime Carnivore (aka Greta Morgan) on Endings and Death

"[My personal hell would be] some combo of shopping malls, jury duty, diarrhea, computer midi versions of jazz standards, and taxes."

Oct 07, 2016 By Mark Redfern Photography by Julia Brokaw Springtime Carnivore

To end out the week, we ask Springtime Carnivore (aka Greta Morgan) some questions about endings and death. Springtime Carnivore’s sophomore album, Midnight Room, is out today via Autumn Tone. Chris Coady (Beach House, Future Islands) produced Midnight Room, which features Morgan on vocals, guitar, synthesizers, piano, and percussion as well as La Sera‘s Katy Goodman on background vocals, Alex Greenwald (Phases, Phantom Planet) on bass, and Jason Boesel (Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes) on percussion. It’s the follow-up to 2014’s self-titled debut album. Morgan and Goodman also recently teamed up for a new album of post-punk covers entitled Take It, It’s Yours, which came out in August via Polyvinyl. Read on Morgan talks about her favorite endings to movies, books, and albums, as well as her personal versions of heaven and hell.

What’s your favorite ending to a movie?

Hannah and Her Sisters. Dianne Wiest’s character is a recovered drug addict who finds domestic bliss with Woody Allen’s character. They kiss in a hallway after she breaks some good news to him. It’s as sentimental as an ending can be without becoming cheesy. Close runners up are Rushmore and The Graduate.

What’s your favorite last line in a book?

Kate Braverman has this incredible short story called Tall Tales From the Mekong Delta about a woman who is a recovering drug addict and is being aggressively pursued romantically by a man who epitomizes the darkness of addiction. One motif through the whole story is a focus on the color blue whenever the aggressive man is around. In the end, the female character gives into him and the final description is this:

“Lenny closed the door. The night stayed outside. She was surprised. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Instead, blue things flew in, pieces of glass or tin, or necklaces of blue diamonds, perhaps. The air was the blue of a pool when there are shadows, when clouds cross the turquoise surface, when you suspect something contagious is leaking, something camouflaged and disrupted. There is only this infected blue enormity elongating defiantly. The blue that knows you and where you live and it’s never going to forget.”

What’s your favorite last record by a band that broke up?

Phantom Planet’s Raise the Dead (2008). I toured with them extensively during the release of this record and I loved every single song. I watched them play probably 70 shows and never once felt bored. Though they haven’t toured or released music in eight years, they also haven’t officially announced a statement that they’ve broken up, so there’s a small part of me always hoping for a reunion.

What’s your favorite way a band has broken up?

The Replacements have broken up on stage twice, but I’m thinking of the first time they broke up: as the band played Grant Park in Chicago to thousands of fans in 1991, they started playing “Hootenanny,” and Tommy Stinson said, “It’s the f*ckin last time you’ll ever hear it!”

What’s your favorite last song on an album?

“Goodnight” on [The Beatles’] The White Album. I am realizing right now that this song is probably why I’ve always chosen to end albums with ballads.

If you were on death row, what would you like your last meal to be?

My general diet is vegetable-heavy health food, so I’d probably eat a cheeseburger with the works and a side of crispy sweet potato fries. I’d drink a few martinis and then have a Hail Merry chocolate tart for desert.

What’s your concept of the afterlife?

I keep a cosmic vantage point and imagine the universe as one energetic equation that doesn’t change much based on who is alive or dead on Earth at one time. I guess, in that sense, I believe reincarnation makes sense because energy can’t be destroyed. When I die, I imagine that my physical remains will become part of the earth and that my spirit will enter back into the energetic equation of the universe. I believe that our spirits choose to be manifested in physical states and that our spirits continue after that physical entity is gone.

What would be the worst punishment the devil could devise for you in hell, if he exists?

Some combo of shopping malls, jury duty, diarrhea, computer midi versions of jazz standards, and taxes. Throw in some unripe persimmons to give me terrible dry mouth and, yep, that’s my hell.

If reincarnation exists, who or what would you like to be reincarnated as?

A hummingbird. I would love to fly. I would love to taste nectar. I would be curious to feel my heart beat that fast.

What role or achievement would you most like to be remembered for?

Being kind, curious, creative, and devoted to the people I love. Unfortunately, people will probably remember that I love writing terrible jokes that usually make only one person laugh: me.

What would you like your last words to be?

Hey! LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO!

www.springtimecarnivore.com