My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket is an American rock band formed in 1998 in Louisville, Kentucky. They are known for their psychedelic hippie rock. The band is comprised of Jim James (singer-songwriter, guitarist), Tom 'Two-Tone Tommy' Blankenship (bassist), Patrick Hallahan (drummer), Carl Broemel (guitarist, pedal steel guitarist, saxophonist, vocalist), and Bo Koster (keyboardist, percussionist, vocalist).

The band at the Newport Folk Festival in 2015

They are a great example of a band that doesn't really want to explain their band name origin. I might even guess that the name My Morning Jacket has no real origin, hence the mystery.

During our research, we found an article from 2008 by The Independent that revealed a story that lead singer Jim James had told in regard to the band’s name. According to the article, James was visiting an old friend and discovered that his favorite bar had burned down. In these burned remains, he found a jacket with the initials “MMJ” stitched on it, and thus My Morning Jacket was born.

However, other sources claim that James has told numerous, conflicting stories about how the band’s name came to be. He has said that the name came from him writing down various things in a lyrics notebook and that My Morning Jacket happened to be one of those things. He’s also said that the name is just “a weird name for a band.” 

A similar story to the one in that article by Jim James who said he was visiting his old student-hangout bar (Boot's Bar in Lexington), which had been razed by a fire. Amongst the charred remains, he came upon a jacket which had stitched "MMJ", which he took to mean "My Morning Jacket."

A rather far-fetched story is that it is slang for when a man wakes up in the morning with an erection with a condom already on.

This online post collects a number of origins

cover of is (import album)