What a Wonderful Man -My Morning Jacket
Oliver James - Fleet Foxes
A Friend of Ours - Elbow
Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris
Danny Callahan - Bright Eyes
The Leader of the Pack - The Shangri-Las
It Just Is - Rilo Kiley
Henry Lee - PJ Harvey & Nick Cave
Local Boy in the Photograph - Stereophonics
Tonight's the Night - Neil Young
Again, there are more than enough of these to choose from. I guess the rock'n'roll people know a lot of friends and peers who've died before their time, and it may be a badge of honour to compose a fitting tribute.
I think these are all fine songs. Danny Callahan just floors me, a song with a real sucker punch. At his best, Conor Oberst really is quite something as a lyricist. One could use this as an opportunity to slag the Stereophonics and say this is their one decent song, but in recent times I've been thinking they got rather a rough deal from us post-Britpop indie kids. I think they've probably got a reasonable amount of decent songs, they just got a bit too big, and were liked by "the wrong sort of people".
Henry Lee is pretty much an inversion of Where the Wild Roses Grow, Boulder to Birmingham is about Gram Parsons and What a Wonderful Man, well that is just a great tune.
I'd also like to note a possible mistake in my previous post. I had The Trapeze Swinger as about a dead girl, but I now think it's the dude himself that's the dead one, so I guess that could be in this category. Bloomin' great song, though.
So, here's one about a dead dude. Perhaps it's relatively obvious which one. Doesn't really matter.
Another elegy ticked off, my inane grin
well practised casts the darkest shadow.
Another drink with a drunk in a lunchtime pub
stumbles off to noteless nowhere - I've learnt at least
not to cry for my own grim lifeblood as it fails.
Another cult, a stately fraud I barely halt
at joining, then thrust my tossy pronouncements
forward to general embarrassment, or worse.
Another cult, a single scene, a study in loss
which restores life to all briefly, too briefly.
Another life, I'd have the grace not to laugh
at one man's tatty tragedy enacted on
the least glamorous streets of inner London.
O brother, you ain't looked at me in years
and I can't bring myself to bring myself down for it.
Another pompous word too soon, causes natural,
restlessness traps you too early, quietly
on the most glamorous streets of downtown New York
your rictus grin as ill-fitting as mine, poor soul.
You deserve better, both best left alone.
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