Guest David Puddy Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Which is odd to me - I have always thought that was Jay's strong point - lyric writing. jay is a great lyricist. no doubt. but i think there's something timeless and sad about jay's lyrics, and the way he sings them. it's sometimes a bit hard to take in, personally. everytime i hear "we've all had our ups and downs, been mostly down around here" it's just so painful. yet incredibly good. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DawgSong Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 just so y'all know.... up on bt etree now: Uncle Tupelo11-08-1992Lounge AxChicago, IL Source: DAUD (All that was given but it is a good one... nearly sounds like a matrix)Transfer: Tascam DA-20>Roland UA-30>WavLab5>CDWav>FLAC (level 8 )Transfered and Seeded: Stagger (Josh Evans) Disc 1: 1. Grindstone2. No Depression3. Wait Up4. Shaky Ground5. Atomic Power6. Sauget Wind7. Nothing8. Postcard9. That Year10. Fall Down Easy11. Watch Me Fall12. Punch Drunk13. Cold Shoulder14. Discarded15. Looking For A Way Out16. Gun17. Factory Belt18. Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down19. Moonshiner20. Wipe the Clock21. I Wanna Destroy You (acoustic)22. Motion Pictures23. True to Life24. Before I Break The guy who seeded this had the following to say: "Folks, just so you know. I recently had a friend dump a bunch of DATs of old Wilco, Tweedy, Son Volt, K-sets (next up), Ferrar, Coffee Creek, and a couple more old Tupelo shows (sadly UT is the least represented). It is going to take me quite a while to get this all transfered and I'm probably going to need some setlist help because some of this stuff (especially the early solo Tweedy) does not seem to appear in the normal archives. Just a heads up for those of y'all wishing for more" I grabbed an early SV from him as well earlier this week. Keep ya EYES out over at bt etree. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MattZ Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 jay is a great lyricist. no doubt. I go back and forth on Jay's lyrics. Some days I think they are wonderful and some days I think they are incredibly trite and forced (e.g., Coalminers). I say this as someone's with a Son Volt lyric in my signature -- "anesthetize is what you do" is one of my favorite lines ever. Seems like it could mean about 20 different things. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Analogman Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Yes, but at the time I was a 19-year-old punkass who was more interested in drunkenly pogoing than appreciating lyrcial content. I know what you mean - although, for me, it was ritual sacrifice and Grave Digger. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ction Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Yes, but I don't remember much about it though. I keep thinking it was at the Paradise in Boston, but it might have been TT the Bear's in Cambridge (much more fitting given their status at the time). I also might be making the whole thing up...it remains a cloudy period in time for me. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PopTodd Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 HEY SUE!!!If you're reading this, I'd love if you could ask Jeff if he remembers that Halloween '89 show at the Blue Note, with fIREHOSE.Does he remember the gynecologist costume and the Mount Rushmore costume that won the prizes? Anyway, that concert changed my life, and it would be nice to think that the guys in the band remembered that show, too.(Melodramatic, I know, but as a musician, it's the truth. Discovering them changed my whole approach to music.) Thanks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest David Puddy Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 I go back and forth on Jay's lyrics. Some days I think they are wonderful and some days I think they are incredibly trite and forced (e.g., Coalminers). isn't coalminers a traditional piece? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Analogman Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Coalminers (Sarah Ogan Gunning)"Coalminers" is listed as "traditional" on UT's March album, but in fact it was written by Sarah Ogan Gunning. Sarah was the wife of a coal miner, and her version, titled "Come All Ye Coal Miners," is sung from that perspective ("I am a coal miner's wife and I sure wish you well"). The earliest known version of Sarah singing this song was recorded by Alan Lomax in 1937, and that version can be found on the New World Records release, Oh My Little Darling: Folk Song Types (this release also includes a version of "Lily Schull"). It is also later version that is available on a vinyl-only Rounder compilation of coal mining tunes called Come All Ye Coal Miners. The liner notes of the New World Records LP say "... Sarah regards "Come All Ye Coal Miners" less "as a polemical or protest song" than "as a personal statement of her deepest feelings and sorrow." As such, the song combines personal experience and observation with traditional elements (such as the "Come all ye" opening) in a manner that exemplifies the finest of American folk songs shy, perhaps, on economic theory, but bold and assertive in richly earned anger and righteous outrage." Sarah Garland Gunning of the singing Gunning clan was the tenth of 11 children in a dirt-poor Kentucky mining family. Her father, Jim Garland, joined the Knights of Labor, who became the United Mine Workers of America in 1884. At that time, conditions for miners were atrocious, with the average worker bringing home a dollar and 44 cents for a ten-hour day. Garland became an outspoken representative for the miners, pressuring the mine-owners into coughing up a more decent wage. He was quickly blacklisted and the only way he could continue working was to go down into the mines under aliases. Much time passed before the plight of the Kentucky miners became a matter of national attention. In 1931, a group of Northerners called the Dreiser Committee came to Kentucky to investigate atrocities that had been committed against the miners. By this time, Sarah Garland and her sister, Molly (later known professionally as Aunt Molly Jackson), had literally brought their voices to the family struggle by singing at various events. Their songs often included lyrics of their own creation, or sometimes they would take an existing song and change the words to create a message about the labor struggle. These songs were a powerful tool for forging an emotional bond with crowds at labor rallies. The members of the Dreiser Committee included authors John Dos Passos and Theodore Dreiser, who took the sisters back to New York City to help raise money for the miners' cause. By this time, Sarah Garland was already suffering from brown lung disease. She befriended folk artists such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Burl Ives in New York City, and they would go on to record her songs, such as "I Hate the Capitalist System," "Dreadful Memories," "Let's Go Down on the Picket Line," "I Am Going to Organize," and "Babe of Mine." At the start of World War II, she moved with her husband to Vancouver, where she worked in the Kaiser shipyards. She returned to Kentucky for tuberculosis treatment, when a hole the size of a silver dollar was found in her lungs. In the years following these successful treatments she retired from performing, but was brought back into the public arena by folklorist Archie Green in the '60s, performing at several major folk festivals before fading out again. Her songs regularly turn up in documentaries or compilations focusing on the labor movement. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest David Puddy Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 nonetheless, it wasn't written by jay Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MattZ Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 nonetheless, it wasn't written by jay Duly noted, and thanks for correcting me. I didn't realize it. There are other examples, though. I do think a lot of people critique Jay's lyrics as being trite. Like I said, sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't. I happen to really like Jay so I don't want to be the one carrying the discussion further, but... Here is Robert Christgau's (I think, unfair) review of Trace: Finally the answer to a question that's plagued me for years. I'd pound my pillow at night, drift into revery at convocations on fun, plumb forget how my dick got into my hand, wondering why, why, why I could never give two sh*ts about Uncle Tupelo. But the answer, my friends, was blowing in . . . no, I mean hopes "the wind takes your troubles away." Name's Jay Farrar, never met a detail he couldn't fuzz over with his achy breaky drawl and, er, evocative country-rock--and needn't trouble with the concrete at all now that that smart-ass Jeff Tweedy is Wilco over-and-out. In the unfathomable Tupelo, Tweedy whiled away the hours writing actual songs, leaving Farrar the drudgery of mourning an American past too atmospheric to translate into mere words. As sentimental as Darius Rucker himself, Farrar is only a set of pipes and a big fat heart away from convincing millions of sensitive guys that he evokes for them. (Grade: C+)- Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PopTodd Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Duly noted, and thanks for correcting me. I didn't realize it. There are other examples, though. I do think a lot of people critique Jay's lyrics as being trite. Like I said, sometimes I agree and sometimes I don't. I happen to really like Jay so I don't want to be the one carrying the discussion further, but... Here is Robert Christgau's (I think, unfair) review of Trace: Finally the answer to a question that's plagued me for years. I'd pound my pillow at night, drift into revery at convocations on fun, plumb forget how my dick got into my hand, wondering why, why, why I could never give two sh*ts about Uncle Tupelo. But the answer, my friends, was blowing in . . . no, I mean hopes "the wind takes your troubles away." Name's Jay Farrar, never met a detail he couldn't fuzz over with his achy breaky drawl and, er, evocative country-rock--and needn't trouble with the concrete at all now that that smart-ass Jeff Tweedy is Wilco over-and-out. In the unfathomable Tupelo, Tweedy whiled away the hours writing actual songs, leaving Farrar the drudgery of mourning an American past too atmospheric to translate into mere words. As sentimental as Darius Rucker himself, Farrar is only a set of pipes and a big fat heart away from convincing millions of sensitive guys that he evokes for them. (Grade: C+)- Quote Link to post Share on other sites
poppydawn Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Oh, I have a much great appreciation for Jay now than I did back in the day. He's definitely a wonderful lyricist. As for the triteness, I think it's worth remembering that he was pretty young when he was with Uncle Tupelo. That first Son Volt album is pure poetry. This was really brought home to me a few weeks ago. I read "Tear-Stained Eye" at the memorial Kate and I did for Natalie, and was struck all over again by what a beautiful, haunting, evocative song it is. Even without music, it stands on its own. I'm currently reading "U2 at the End of the World" by Mark Flannigan, and there was an interesting point I read last night. Bono was talking/ranting about how in any other art form (visual arts, writing, film making), artists aren't expected to produce anything worthwhile until they're at least in their 30s. With songwriting, it's the opposite; there's an expectation to peak while young and then flame out, which is why we wind up with so much music that's trite and cliched. Songwriters often aren't given the opportunity to grow into their work the way other artists are. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest David Puddy Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Christgau can go screw himself. plumb forget how my dick got into my hand i think he already did... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PopTodd Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 pl i think he already did... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MattZ Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 I hate Robert Christgau. He is a smug prick. Given my thoughts on him, I probably could have used a different example. But I found it quikcly. My only point was that there are a lot of people out there who think this about Jay Farrar's lyrics. And now I am going to get out of this thread before I dig my hole any deeper. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest David Puddy Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 And now I am going to get out of this thread before I dig my hole any deeper. i see no reason to run and hide. i don't know that i even disagree. i just thought it would've made your point a bit stronger if you referenced a song he'd actually written. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mountain bed Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 "Farrar's achy-breaky drawl". I know everyone's entitled to their opinion, but jeesh.. That voice drills me to the floor like few others do. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Analogman Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 We could post some Jay lyrics - he has them all up at his website BUTHEYARERANTOGETHERANDINALLCAPS. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NightOfJoy Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 I saw UT once in the early 90s. Lounge Ax in Chicago. I dragged a bunch of my pals with. I dont recall much which means I was most likely stoned to bejesus. Back then I used to get, honest to god, G-13, indoor grown, that made remembering things and driving cars very difficult. It was very crowded and smokey. I do seem to recall the band all wearing flannel which wasnt that remarkable since it seemed all the bands and cool kids wore flannel back then. They were loud but most bands were loud at Lounge Ax. They just didnt strike me as anything all that special. They were fun but overall, meh. After the band was all kaput, then Trace (thats Jays first one, right?) came out. Thats when my ears perked up and I started digging in UTs back catalog and I realized I shoulda been paying a bit more attention to the band and less attention to whatever honey I was trying to smooze that nite. I have a boot of the show I'm pretty sure I saw....bad recording though. RIP Lounge Ax, man did I see some great bands there... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hardwood floor Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 I saw Uncle Tupelo at the TLA in Philly on the Anodyne tour and it was definitely an all-time top-10 show for me. Just mind-blowing. I've mentioned this to a few folks here...UT played within an hour or so from me dozens of times but I never went to see them. I was too caught up in planning to follow another band (which I'm sure you all know who) all over hell's half-acre. Everytime I think about this I want to punch myself in the face. curious who the other band was ... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dmait Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 >I saw Uncle Tupelo at the TLA in Philly on the Anodyne tour and it was definitely an all-time top-10 show for me. That's huge. Well done. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
IATTBYB Posted January 7, 2009 Share Posted January 7, 2009 factorybelt.net A good UT site.Man, I thought I had seen UT at either the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor or Club Soda in Kalamazoo, but according to that website A-man linked, maybe not. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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