I’m not feeling 100 per cent. I
won’t say I’m sick, but I’m light on energy reserves. My plan at this point is
to ignore it until it goes away. You’d be surprised how often this works.
Disc 684 is…. Mermaid Avenue
Artist: Billy
Bragg and Wilco
Year of Release: 1998
What’s up with the Cover? I am going to
guess this is a picture of Woody Guthrie’s Coney Island home on Mermaid Avenue,
since that’s what the album is named after, and would therefore make for a
fitting cover. Unless it is one of those ironic hipster moments, where the
picture doesn’t mean anything. I just can’t see Billy Bragg and
Wilco doing that to Woody, though.
How I Came To Know It: I once again don’t remember. I
think someone sent me the song “Way Over
Yonder In a Minor Key” and that caused me to fall down the Youtube hole and
into the embrace of “Mermaid Avenue.”
How It Stacks Up: I have four Wilco albums and six Billy Bragg albums,
but only two albums featuring both of them; this one and “Mermaid Avenue Vol.
II” (reviewed back at Disc 537). Of the two, Volume 1 (this one) is best.
Rating: 4 stars
One day Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora took a bunch of
her father’s unrecorded lyrics to Billy Bragg and Wilco and asked them “can you
do something with these?” “Hell, yes!” they presumably replied, and made this
record.
Guthrie didn’t write his music down, just the words,
so Wilco and Bragg were able to bring their own prodigious talents to the equation.
As a result, “Mermaid Avenue” is thrice blessed.
I can’t think of a better fit for this project than
Billy Bragg, whose own brand of socially conscious protest rock makes him a
natural inheritor of Guthrie’s work. Guthrie’s down-home folksy charm rings
through on the songs Bragg takes lead on.
Unsurprisingly, “Mermaid Avenue” has some socialist
gems that Bragg gives voice to, including “Christ
for President” and the union anthem “I
Guess I Planted.” These are good tracks, but Bragg’s got nothing to prove
on this front, and I preferred him taking on Guthrie’s whimsical side. Drunken
adventures abound on “Walt Whitman’s
Niece” and “Ingrid Bergman” has Guthrie
reminding latter-day audiences just what a sexual icon she was in the day. The
song has Guthrie hoping for a few minutes alone with Ingrid on Mount Stromboli,
convinced her beauty would cause the mountain to erupt.
The best of all is the song that got me into this
album, “Way Over Yonder In a Minor Key.”
This is a song that gives you a glimpse into misadventure in the forties
(Guthrie wrote the lyrics in 1946). It also reminds us that even the ugly boy
gets the pretty girl if he can sing and write songs – as long as he’s willing
to brave her mom’s willow switch later. Bragg’s treatment is the perfect mix of
playful and pastoral.
Jeff Tweedy and Wilco bring a whole other dimension
to the music. This is early in Wilco’s career, and they are still firmly in
their folksy/blue-eyed soul phase. While very unlike Bragg’s approach, it is
the perfect counterbalance. Where Bragg’s songs are deep and boisterous, Wilco’s
are bright and jangly. Standouts include the laid back “California Stars” and the mournful “At My Window Sad and Lonely.”
Although mostly just doing backup vocals, it was
also nice to hear Natalie Merchant get in on the action, taking lead vocals on
the strongly traditional “Birds and Ships.”
This record is a fitting legacy for Woody Guthrie
and the great folk artists he’s inspired for decades since he wrote these
songs. There is no better example on “Mermaid Avenue” than the rolling folk
song “The Unwelcome Guest” which is
about an outlaw that steals from the rich and gives to the poor. The song is
typical fare for Bragg and Guthrie, which puts message above character in the
end by converting the song’s title character into a movement:
“Yes, they’ll catch me napping
one day and they’ll kill me
And then I’ll be gone but that
won’t be my end
For my guns and my saddle will
always be filled
By unwelcome travelers and other
brave men.”
The song is the last on the record, which lets it
linger in your ears and echo through the ages. It shows that both Bragg and
Wilco understand that they are standing on the shoulders of a folk music giant,
even as they pull him back into the consciousness of a whole new generation.
I saw Bragg in concert very recently, and he was still
singing songs off of “Mermaid Avenue” and still talking about the experience of
recording it. It was clear that he was deeply touched by the opportunity. “Mermaid
Avenue” shows that both he and Wilco made the best of it.
Best tracks: California Stars, Way Over
Yonder in the Minor Key, Birds and Ships, At My Window Sad and Lonely, Ingrid
Bergman, The Unwelcome Guest
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