to be a disciple of. Jesus doesn't work, Morrissey doesn't work, and Kip Winger is the only one who provides a voice of reason." "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" directly alludes to Sweetheart of the Rodeo by The Byrds, and also references "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" by The Velvet Underground. The heavily referential nature of King James Version's lyrics was inspired by the works of Frederic Tuten, an American novelist known for his style of referencing to the past vis-a-vis to the present in his works. "I feel that's a huge part of listening to rock n' roll music. As a listener, when I want to talk about anything with my friends, I can casually say half a line from any of a hundred songs and they know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't have to elucidate [(explain)] the sentiment any further. It's admitting rock songs can be a response to rock songs, and not necessarily be just so referential that they're just about rock songs." Nelson thanks Tuten in the album's liner notes, and also thanks novelist Philip Roth and Le Show by Harry Shearer. To further connect with the album's recurring theme of referencing other musicians and people, King James Version features an array of backup vocalists, including Grant Lee Buffallo's Grant-Lee Phillips and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard, in order to "reflect many, many voices." Nelson deliberately avoided writing about the band's struggles with their success, believing the subject to be "stupid and irrelevant to most people that listen to music." Title and packaging The album's title of King James Version is both a reference to the King James Version of the Bible, and to the album's "second gestation period". Nelson described the album's title as referring to "coming through a convoluted process and arriving at a version of the album and the band that feels sort of definitive." The album title attracted some controversy from Christians, who felt it was blasphemous. The album's artwork was done by Tae Won Yu; Nelson described the artwork as an expression of "[the] band's fractured mental and psychic state, or relationship to ourselves, our city, our project, and each other." He also described the artwork as "beautiful/terrible/perfect" and "a mess", which he attributed to the band "[micromanaging Tae Won Yu] into the ground", and said that it was printed with the wrong shade of blue. Release and promotion Following