Electro-Shock Blues

Liz, the sister of Eel's mainman Mark Everett, spent several years in and out of rehab and mental institutions before committing suicide in 1996. This song referred to one of her mental hospital stays when the doctors told her to write, "I am OK" a hundred times.

This was one of several tracks on the Electro-Shock Blues album where Everett reflected back on his sister. He told Q magazine (February 2008) that it was his way of giving Liz, who was always his biggest fan, a creative outlet: "It's like, here's the gift I can give her. It's too bad she couldn't do this for herself but I'm going to let her be an artist here. It's like putting a frame around her."

Everett recorded this album during a bleak time in his life. He had lost his only spouse and his mother was dying of lung cancer, so it was probably to be expected that much of the album deals with death and loss. After his mother passed away in 1998 Everett was left as the sole surviving member of his family (his father died of a heart attack in 1982). The tragedies didn't end there as one of his cousins, Jennifer, was a stewardess on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.