Nightcap with Tift Merritt

Nightcap with Tift Merritt

Share this post

Nightcap with Tift Merritt
Nightcap with Tift Merritt
Library of Dust
Rare B-sides

Library of Dust

David Maisel's incredible photography project inspires the new song below.

Tift Merritt's avatar
Tift Merritt
Aug 17, 2023
∙ Paid
6

Share this post

Nightcap with Tift Merritt
Nightcap with Tift Merritt
Library of Dust
1
Share
David Maisel’s Library Of Dust, an extraordinary and inspiring project.

In my time exploring old buildings and archives and asking found objects what they wanted to sing, one of my deepest inspirations was an astonishing photography project called Library of Dust.  The Oregon State Hospital discovered unclaimed cremains in copper canisters which had essentially expressed the unique lives within them through the process of nature and copper decay.  David Maisel’s powerful images are breathtaking and liminal — there are so few first-person traces of the people who lived in asylums; this is an elemental experience of their lives.  The project inspired my first musical imagining of the Library of Dust — its holdings, its nuances, its imprints, its foreverness.  How would you give someone a tour of such a place?  I returned this week to the first iteration of these songs, an object exhibit, looking for a narrative.  A stack of six foreman’s time books marking employee’s hours sat next to a cluster of oak leaves I picked up at the same site, along with the writing below.  Somehow, with the help of an open-tuned guitar Eric lent me, it all weaved itself together to become a song. 

Share

For new songs, become a paid subscriber. Nightcap is grateful for your support.

This post is for paid subscribers

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Tift Merritt
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share