“BUT SADLY, SOMEWHERE” is created with regard to the masterpiece “Sirin and Alkonost: The Birds of Joy and Sorrow,” painted by Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov in 1896, now on display at The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. Another source of inspiration for the song’s narrative derives from a collection of fables attributed to the Ancient Greek storyteller Aesop (ca. 620 BCE-564 BCE).