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| My Morning Jacket at Tivoli Oudegracht in Utrecht, NL |
Interviewer: Where did the name My Morning Jacket come from?(Bunbury interview, December 1999)
Jim James: I have no idea
Interviewer: You don't have a story for that? Rolling Stone is going to want to know that, you know you gotta come up with a story!
Jim James: I'll just go... [audience laughter]
When asked about the band name, My Morning Jacket usually give the same explanation, with a few minor details that changes from time to time. The essence of the story being that Jim James found a robe with the initials MMJ on it in a burnt down bar and then thought of the name My Morning Jacket. On rare occasions James will refuse or avoid talking about the name's origins.
"I'd like to think that somebody's name was My Morning Jacket"- Jim James
(CMJ New Music Monthly interview, June 2002)
Stripper's robe version
In an interview with CMJ New Music Monthly in June 2002, Jim James said that the name My Morning Jacket comes from a monogram with the initials MMJ on a stripper's robe found in an weird old bar (where a shady exotic dancing operation had once been) next to the arts building at the University of Lexington, that burnt down. James gave a similar answer in a 2011 CNN interview.
Interviewer: Where did your band name come from?(CNN video interview, July 2011)
[laughs]
Jim James: It was Boot's Bar, fall of '83, there's a place in Lexington called Boot's Bar. It didn't burn down, but the inside of it burned. The outside was still there and we went in one night and they were carrying everything out. Down in the bottom of the bar, was like the strippers' area I guess. It used to be a strip club and there was like a pole and the stage was there and the whole bar was burned and everything was decimated, but the stage lights were still on and in the dressing room next to the strippers' stage was a closet and in that closet was a jacket with the initials MMJ stenciled on the jacket.
Cigarette/not the be shared version (2003)
"My Morning Jacket, isn't that a brand of cigarettes?"- Johnny Quaid
(Neumu interview, September 2003)
In an 2003 Neumu interview Jim James avoids talking about the band name, saying that he could tell a load of bullshit about the name, but that he's not going to.
"There are just some things that are meant for us and there are other things that are meant to be shared with the public. Our name and the name of the studio is for us; the music is for the public."- Jim James
(Neumu interview, September 2003)
Middle-school notebook version
In a 2007 Magnet Magazine interview, Jim James told the magazine that the name is just a non sequitur he remembers scrawling down in a middle-school notebook.
Just lying in bed version
In an interview with the Australian newspaper The Age James claimed that there is no hidden meaning behind the band name, the name just came to him.
"I was just lying on my bed, writing songs in a notebook, and I put 'my morning jacket' at the top of the page, it doesn't mean anything. A lot of things happen for me that way - things pop into my head when I'm riding down the highway or at inopportune moments, like when I'm falling off to sleep."- Jim James
(The Age interview, March 2004)
A weird name for a band
In a 2010 JamBase interview Tom Blankenship told the interviewer that he thinks My Morning Jacket is a weird name for a band.
"One of the reasons I've always liked the name is because it doesn't sound like anything at all. Nothing comes to my mind except, "That's kind of a weird name for a band [laughs]."- Tom Blankenship
(JamBase interview, October 2010)
Everybody's Jacket
Interviewer: I sometimes play a game involving the name of your band, taking turns with placing the emphasis on each different word: My Morning Jacket, My Morning Jacket or My Morning Jacket. They each imply something different. Which word do you emphasize?- Jim James
Jim James: My Morning Jacket...
Interviewer: So it's Your Morning Jacket?
Jim James: It's everybody's.
(Spinner interview, May 2008)
