This song has been on one list or another for years. I don’t think I ever learned it on guitar as a teenager, though it seems pretty simple now, honestly! It’s a little, uh, emo for karaoke, I guess? So I’d probably never sung it end to end without the record until now.
Kinda feel like I got the guitar parts right, if a little extra muddled with reverb. The second vocal isn’t totally necessary, but there were a few obvious moments where it covered up some errors.
Also, did I record this U2 song before the England-Italy Euros final to jinx the English? Maybe. Maybe I did. Maybe. Maybe yes. Yes. Yes I did.
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Worth noting: My cover is only 7 seconds longer than the record.
Believe it or not, it’s been a couple months between Wilco songs? Seems unlikely, I know, but according to my (spreadsheet) records, it seems true.
This song is one I’ve probably sung in exactly two places: This basement, and the car. Well, maybe a variety of cars, since I guess this dates back to our Honda Civic days in Santa Cruz? Before that car — the “loss leader” at the used car sale in the mall parking lots, the car that let them say “as low as $4,700” although that seems steep even now for a 6-year-old Civic DX two-door with no air conditioning, not that we needed any in Santa Cruz — anyway, yes, before that car, we took the bus and/or bicycled where we needed to go.
The Honda, weirdly though, had a six CD changer, in the trunk. This meant investing in a spindle of blank CDs and a box of slim jewel boxes which we still have not used up, some 17 years after buying the car. Sky Blue Sky might’ve been one I bought early on, anyway, and never pirated on a torrent or anything, because we seem to own a copy on CD.
Also this song is borderline Sesame Street material, and that just makes me love it more. (Oh, and there’s nothing more confusing to me than an “A#” in the chords where a “Bb” would be quicker for my brain to process.)
I think I wrote a little about this when I wrote about another Leonard Cohen track, but this song was my route into his music, by way of the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack — or, well, the movie, because I think the soundtrack might have the Concrete Blonde cover? Which is fine. But this is the Leonard Cohen version, all keyboards and synths and pumping beat, like some Wim Wenders 1980s black and white lens. (Why do I associate the I’m Your Man album so strongly with Wings of Desire? Does he use it in there somewhere? Or is it just the whole First We Take Manhattan aesthetic?)
Anyway, it’s a little cynical! “Everybody Knows” was a big part of my worldview as a teenager, and sat neatly along side the U2 Zoo TV tour video screen epigrams like “Everything You Know Is Wrong” when I started writing in my own secret poetry/journals in high school.
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Lots of layers here, including like 4 different drum loops just mashed in there together, and a synth, and a bass synth, and some high sorta bells synth, and the unnecessary guitar, and a few vocals, including a “deep like Leonard” track.
I messed up one of the later verses coming out of the little solo/break thing, and I’m not sure how, but it’s one of those compounding mistakes as I add layers and follow along with my own mess. I just went with it. Nothing like biffing the biblical verse, eh? [extremely nervous laughter]
Also, how the heck is my version like 1:45 longer than the record??
This song is off the Big Lebowski soundtrack, as far as I’m concerned, which earns it a special place in our household, while also being non-Lebowski obscure enough that I have never heard it any other place in my life that I can recall.
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Played it loud, sang it loud, added a noodly guitar and an appropriate organ.
*and Bill Withers! Hard to know who to credit on this song, which I did not ever understand was put out by the saxophonist — this is Puro Love 94 material right here — on a 1980 album, rather than something from Mr. Withers himself.
Sometimes, I just crack open the “Top 100” on the site/app where I look up guitar chords for these songs, and see what’s popular with the kids these days. Inevitably, it’s 1) Current pop songs I’ve never heard, 2) Current pop songs by artists I have heard, like Olivia Rodrigo this week, 3) Can’t Help Falling In Love, always in the top three songs, 4) Classic Rock, 5) Creep, 6) Other assorted love songs, like this one.
I don’t want to talk about the saxophone run, or the weird bridge chords underneath it. I’m not sure F13 exists, and you can’t prove it does. What the heck is a 13th, anyway? Probably not real, unless that chord was invented during a union strike. (This is a wildly obscure joke about my college dorm.)
Unironically doing songs I learned at summer camp during the exact time of year I used to go to summer camp, because it’s summer camp season.
This song is one I apparently used to know better? At least, I feel like the chord changes around the chorus used to be less mystifying, and the end of the solo, indeed, worked better on an electric that has enough frets, but I know for a fact that never stopped me before.
I can’t begin to describe how tired I am right now, so this is what you get on day 187, and not some sly Snoop reference, like a cover-of-a-cover of Gin & Juice, though that is tempting.
This song is somehow both unavoidable Classic Rock Radio but also meaningful because summer camp, and reminds me of one specific person, but maybe also the dog, because I hiked all day without her, and I do, in fact, wish she were here.
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Rehearsed this one on a literal porch swing, authentic AF out here in West Virginia. Tomorrow we head home, and I’ll be back in the basement with all my toys. Including faster internet upload speeds.
It’s July Fourth, and what’s more American than Elvis stealing a song from a black man, goofing around dropping it as a b-side on a silly ballad, and having it make lots of “best songs of the century” long lists, 50 years later.
This song is fun, though, and 1956 seems like a long time ago, so we’ll let it ride.
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Recorded in a super cute Airbnb’d house in Lewisburg, WV, and inspired by checking out a waterfall and hike near some railroad tracks today, but also, once you’re invested in train songs, best to keep the streak alive. Gotta love songs that count the number of cars on the train — feels like maybe I need to do Johnny Cash tomorrow?
Also: Uploading 300MB+ videos from the road is… interesting… Last night’s was from my phone on burrito spot wifi. Today, the 2MB up internet is choking hard when I try to upload to Media Library directly, but uploading to Google Drive from my phone seemed to work OK, though I couldn’t find a way to embed that, and now I’m uploading it from my phone to YouTube, so that’s why there’s a YouTube embed this time around, which I’ve really actively been avoiding. Because YouTube. :shrug:
The Train That Carried My Girl From Town, by Doc Watson.
This song is one of my favorite Doc Watson numbers, and ties into In The Pines a bit (the longest train I ever saw….) and also I’m in West Virginia, and also Tennessee Stud reminded me of Doc Watson, and I went looking through his songs while literally walking in the woods today and found this one waiting for me, so I sang it on the trail the rest of the day.
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The audio and video quality on my phone continues to troll me.
Take Me Home, Country Roads, by Toots and the Maytals.
Yes, indeed, this is a #cover-of-a-cover, because I have heard Toots sing this song way, way, way, way more times than I have heard John Denver sing it.
This might be the easiest Toots song to cover, but it’s not the most important to me, but also it’s pretty moving, tbqh. Higher up on my list of formative joy-inducing Toots goodness: Reggae Got Soul, Funky Kingston, 54-46, Pressure Drop, etc., etc.
Toots is also the greatest performer I have ever seen in concert in my life. Beats Jagger, beats, McCartney, beats Axl Rose, beats … idk, Wayne Shorter? Beats them all. If I had ever seen James Brown play, it would’ve been a contest.
Toots and the Maytals live shows were a highlight of my college years, punctuation to my years in New York just as much as Stereolab or The Sea and Cake, just as much as trips to Central Park. Toots danced and sang and played and fell to his knees in soulful prayer, and lifted us heavenward with his hands and eyes and voice. Toots poured water in our mouths when we were thirsty (this is true!) and didn’t look like he was judging the crowd full of white kids (sometimes a ska crowd at Wetlands, sometimes a frat crowd at Tramps, sometimes hippie kids mixed into both), although the rest of the band might’ve given us some skeptical looks now and then. 🙂
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Literally going to West Virginia for the weekend, so this is a fully non-ironic performance.