Elseblog, New and (Re)Covered: Folk Covers of The Smiths Here, Pop Punk Covers of Folk Songs at Fong Songs

I'm guest hosting over at Fong Songs again today, throwing down a feature on Pop Punk covers of folk songs while Fong heads off to Las Vegas for some culture. (I'd say more, but you know what they say about what happens in Vegas.) If your ears can take the hard stuff, join me at Fong Songs for the sweet non-folk sounds of The Lemonheads, Sonic Youth, P.J. Harvey, Dinosaur Jr., and a bunch of other 80s alt-punk rockers.

Before you go, here's some earcandy, a half-pint (Re)Covered set of folk covers of songs by seminal 80s alt-pop band The Smiths and their lead singer Morrissey, collected on the blogosphere and unearthed while digging through the tracks for last week's post on Billy Bragg. Regular readers will remember that my first guest post over at Fong Songs was a feature on Smiths coversongs, too. And so the world comes full-circle.

From Sandie Shaw's solo acoustic punk folk to Scott Matthews's rich-toned atmospheric indiefolk, the below tracks are worth a second listen. Also included: Decemberist Colin Meloy's solo-with-harmonies cover of two Morrissey tunes, and Joshua Radin's amazing Girlfriend in a Coma, which hit the Fong Songs post late in the game.

• Sandie Shaw, Jeane (orig. The Smiths)
  
• Scott Matthews, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (orig. The Smiths)
  
• Joshua Radin, Girlfriend In A Coma (orig. The Smiths)
  
• Colin Meloy, Jack The Ripper (orig. Morrissey)
  
• Colin Meloy, Everyday Is Like Sunday (orig. Morrissey)

Enjoy the music, both here and elseblog. And remember to click on artist names to learn more and purchase music if you like what you hear.

Billy Bragg Covers: The Beatles, The Smiths, Seeger, Guthrie, etc.

The coversongs of Brit-folker Billy Bragg have been hovering on the edge of my consciousness for decades. His lovely, raw cover of She’s Leaving Home was the earworm on 1988’s alternative UK-band coveralbum Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father. His folk-pop work interpreting the lost works of Woody Guthrie in the late nineties reminded me of the genius of both Bragg and genre-defining alt-country musician Jeff Tweedy even as the albums brought the musicians themselves from fringe fandom to full-blown mass market appeal.

Then today, as I crested the mountain in the frigid New England winter air, our local early-morning folkshow played Bragg’s now-seminal, pained 2002 version of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Tracks of My Tears. And I knew it was time to pay tribute to the collected covers of a man who’s made the journey from punk to folk, and come out smiling, without losing his radical political heart.

Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Bragg: folksinger, cover artist, and man of the people.

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Billy Bragg’s bio describes his early work as that of a one-man Clash, an electrified punker with singer-songwriter style. More generally, he is often categorized as anti-folk, though his early work is punk folk, an umbrella that includes such smashingly loud, mosh-pit bands as Flogging Molly and The Pogues. His politically charged lyrics and angry street-broken voice are known for how they speak to the plight of the working class, while making explicit reference to a political arena which is both resonant with and alien to the American ear.

Perhaps because of this tendency to ground himself in the styles and politics of the United Kingdom, for most of his career, Bragg’s work didn’t show much on this side of the Atlantic. I first heard that Beatles cover, for example, on imported vinyl brought into our home by my younger brother, who was primarily in it for the much weirder stuff.

But while it's true that Bragg still shares an anarchist's sensibility with his fellow folk punk luminaries, in his later years, like fellow countryman Elvis Costello, Bragg has mellowed out musically, joining forces with Wilco to pay tribute to one of the seminal authors of the great American songbook, and turning his voice, already torn from the anger of his early punkfolk days, to an almost Americana sensibility.

The combination of new sound and old credibility, of socially aware soul and mellow mature interpreter, fits perfectly into the modern post-folk world of Grammy recognition and blog cred. It says what it needs to that when no less an authority than Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora was looking for someone to write music for two albums worth of unset Woody Guthrie lyrics, she considered Bragg enough of an inheritor of the Guthrie voice-of-the-people, politically and musically, to ask him to do it.

This is Bragg's quieter work, to be sure, though I've planted some of Bragg's harder stuff in the bonus section below. The lush fiddle and plainsong treatment of Pete Seeger is more churchmusic than mosh pit; his version of When the Roses Bloom Again falls towards the country ballad side of alt-country. But listen for the yearning, the core of that politicized soul, and you just can’t miss it. Today’s set even begins with that Beatles cover, a harbinger of the softer artist to come: beautiful, broken-voiced, and unequivocally Bragg.

• Billy Bragg w/ Cara Tivey, She's Leaving Home (orig. The Beatles)
  
• Billy Bragg, Jeane (orig. The Smiths)
  
• Billy Bragg, My Father's Mansions (orig. Pete Seeger)
  
• Billy Bragg, Tracks of My Tears (orig. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)
  
• Billy Bragg, When Will I See You Again (orig. The Three Degrees)
  
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, When the Roses Bloom Again (orig. A. P. Carter)
  
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, Stetson Kennedy (orig. Woody Guthrie/Bragg)
  
• Billy Bragg and Wilco, Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key (ibid.)

Most of Billy Bragg's work has been rereleased since his turn-of-the-century Grammy nominations; his back catalog is an incredible journey, if you're up for the boxset collections and compilations. But no matter whether you choose his old work or his new, buy Billy Bragg's work direct from the source, not the megastores. It just wouldn't be cricket, otherwise.

Today's bonus coversongs:

• Kirsty MacColl covers Bragg's folkpunk anthem A New England popstyle
  
• Jonah Matranga and Frank Turner's indiefolk approach to A New England.
  
• Billy Bragg in full-on folk punk mode...
  • Covers psych-folkers Love's Seven and Seven Is in style
    
  • Does an electrified version of The Smiths' Jeane, live from The Peel Sessions

Previously on Cover Lay Down:
Billy Bragg and Wilco, My Flying Saucer (orig. Guthrie)

Covered In Folk: the Down Under Edition: Kasey Chambers and others cover Tim and Neil Finn of Crowded House

I saw Tim and Neil Finn open for 10,000 Maniacs way back in the hairspray eighties, before Natalie Merchant turned into a banjo-playing folk recluse. Though back then my tastes ran to the produced radioplay of Finn-led popgroup Crowded House, there was something arresting in the simple guitar interplay and close harmonies of the Brothers Finn, riding high on first big Crowded House single Don't Dream It's Over. Their songs revealed a surprising poignancy once the wall of sound came down -- one that still comes through powerfully, despite the ravages of age in their voices, on their recent Finn Brothers release, and in the newly-reincarnated Crowded House that was all the rage at Coachella this year.

Since then, I've learned that Tim's the new-waver and Neil's the pop star. Tim's solo work includes singles but no hits, which is a shame, really: he writes decent if simple melodies, and his more recent work is stark and fine, but he's spent much of his career burying it under synthesizer and make-up. The rest of the record-buying public seems to appreciate Neil's slightly softer songwriting more, if sales are an accurate indication. In my experience, though, when they write together, as they did for most of 1991 album Woodface, the end result is the best of both worlds.

Sixpence None the Richer does a sicklysweet girlpop cover of Don't Dream It's Over that you've heard a hundred times; their version is probably more true to the original recordings than anything else out there. But the best covers of Finn Brothers' work strip it down to the bare essentials. Want proof? Here's Aussie folk sensation Kasey Chambers with a version of Neil's Better Be Home Soon from 2005 Tim and Neil tribute album She Will Have Her Way that will make you cry, and another simple cover of a song co-written by Tim and Neil, just for comparison's sake:

• Kasey Chambers covers Better Be Home Soon (orig. Crowded House)
  
• New Buffalo covers Four Seasons in One Day (orig. Crowded House)

The above cuts plus other beautiful coverversions, all by female Australasian artists, can be yours with the purchase of She Will Have Her Way; I recommend that you buy the bonus version, which is cheaper and includes all the originals, too! Chambers' solo work is not available through her website, but amazon.com has acceptable prices. The acoustic intimacy of Finn Brothers release Everyone Is Here is gorgeous; I hear the new Crowded House album Time On Earth is good, too. Or there's always 1991 popgem Woodface, available on the cheap at your local bargain bin.


Today's bonus coversongs:

• Jennifer Kimball's lush cover of Crowded House hit Fall At Your Feet
  
• Neil Finn's live cover of the Smiths' There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
  
• Kasey Chambers's amazing cover of Fred Eaglesmith's Freight Train

Extra special bonus:

• Richard and Teddy Thompson recover* Persuasion (orig. Thompson/Finn)
  
  *Originally, Persuasion was a Richard Thompson instrumental theme written in 1991 for the movie Sweet Talker; Tim Finn liked it so much that he added lyrics and re-recorded it. Richard and Teddy cut this version with Finn's lyrics in 2000. Technically, that doesn't make it a cover, but I think it qualifies as a "re-cover", so I'm going to let it stand.