The Gourds
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The Gourds are an American alternative country band that formed in Austin, Texas, during the summer of 1994. After playing together for 19 consecutive years, the band went on hiatus in 2013.
The Gourds performing in Austin, Texas, in 2007
Albatross (metaphor)
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An albatross is a metaphor for a psychological or social burden that feels like a curse. It is an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which a dead albatross
The Gourds
…regularly be heard calling out for the band's cover version of the song, sometimes before the show had even started. This led some to consider it an albatross, but the band continued to play the crowd pleaser, often adding a medley of impromptu cover songs to its midsection. The Gourds' studio efforts were…
The albatross is hung around the Mariner's neck in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated in 1876 by Gustave Doré.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge portrait