Aimee Mann

Aimee Mann songs have a literary quality to them—sharp, spare short stories set to music—so it was probably inevitable that she would one day make a concept album, the musical equivalent of a novella. The Forgotten Arm (SuperEgo), her fifth solo release, is exactly that: a dozen songs that tell, rather loosely, the story of John and Caroline as they meet, fall in love and road trip across America. As Mann was writing the songs over the last year and a half she had an image in her head of a couple ultimately headed for trouble. "The guy's a Vietnam vet and a boxer, but he's also a drug addict, and she's trying to get away from the dead end world where she lives in the South. They run off together and wind up in casino town, like Reno or Vegas, and their relationship falls apart. I didn't have a really hard and fast plot line, but I was just generally thinking about them and how they met at the Virginia State Fair, where, being from Virginia, I spent a lot time." The sound of the record also became part of the concept. "I pictured it taking place in the early '70s," says Mann, "during my own experience at the state fair at that time—you know, that kind of white trashy redneck factor which I have a real weakness for. So I wanted the sound of the music to also reflect that time period because I have this really vivid memory of the songs they played at the fair when you're riding the Himalaya." The first song, "Dear John," launches the story with this: "Cotton candy was king / on the midway that spring / when I saw you in the ring on the lawn."