Nora Guthrie is the daughter of Woody Guthrie and the sister of Arlo Guthrie. Nora, by training a dancer (her mother had been a member of Martha Graham's troupe), didn't consider herself a singer. Yet, when her 18-year-old song-writing boyfriend wrote some songs, it felt natural that Nora should record them. The result was the 7" single Emily's Illness b/w Home Before Dark released in 1967.

In the months leading up to "Emily's Illness", Nora and Eric had become fascinated with the music of Brazilian composer and guitarist Joao Gilberto, the creator of the bossa nova. "Joao's music was a really, really big influence on me and Eric, on Eric particularly. We all wrote and sang in the style of Joao and Astrud, that cool jazz, understated samba". A tinge of this sound insinuates itself into "Emily's Illness", primarily in its tempo and guitar stylings, but the song draws at least as much from the dusky tension of folk-rock, the baroque-derived instrumentation of groups like The Left Banke and The Zombies, and on what Eisner refers to as "that incantation of The Beatles". Arranger Artie Schroeck had recently worked on The Lovin' Spoonful's hypnotic "Darling Be Home Soon", where his symphonic instrumental break was a direct response to the coda of "A Day In The Life". Schroeck's arrangement of "Emily's Illness" too owes a large debt to Sgt. Pepper's proposition that adult instruments may be used to color records primarily intended for teenagers. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.