Pull Up the Covers
BILLY BRAGG AND WILCO "MERMAID AVENUE"
When Billy Bragg and Wilco released Mermaid Avenue in 1998, the musical landscape was changing – especially at radio. What had been known as roots music or roots-rock or American music was morphing into a new radio format called Americana. In a lot of ways, this album heralded that change. I first heard it on Dick Pleasant’s The Folk Heritage show, which was on WGBH 89.7fm in Boston. I’ve written about imagination and collaboration. Mermaid Avenue might be one of the best examples of both. Dave Alvin has stated that there are two kinds of folk music: loud and soft. Mermaid Avenue offers both.
When I started the Pull Up the Covers series back in April with Jerry Lee Lewis’ She Still Comes Around (To Love What’s Left of Me), the focus was to be on albums that are traditionally called cover albums. I offered the characterization that they are interpretations instead, which, by my reckoning, fits with this album. Mermaid Avenue has its roots decades back in Woody Guthrie’s notebooks and journals of unpublished writings. The quick version of the story behind this record is that Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, lent Billy Bragg and Wilco the notebooks and journals for them to turn the words into songs. Those songs are poignant and irreverent at the same time – much like Woody himself. The sounds and influences bounce all over the musical landscape. I hear echoes of The Band, ‘60’s garage rock, soft ballads, and George Harrison-influenced slide guitar to name just a few. Natalie Merchant and Alvin Youngblood Hart lend their soulful-selves to the proceedings.
“Come back, Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow”
– Steve Earle, “Christmas in Washington”
We could sure use Woody Guthrie right. (And, probably Mark Twain, too.) Woody’s iconic songs captured the struggles of an entire nation. He gave great awareness to the plight that had befallen so many. And, wrote classics in the process – even protests songs that have become informal anthems. He had plenty to write and sing about. I love Woody, and he’s had a huge influence on me, but I’m not the true authority. For that, you have to hit up my old running buddy Alastair Moock. The magic left behind in those notebooks and journals that became this record, must be amazing to thumb through. I go back to the Alan Lomax recordings with Woody for the Library of Congress all the time. There is so much there – songs, stories, an unadorned wonderment on both men’s parts of what they were doing. It’s a window into a different world, simpler and but complex at the same time. Woody had such a poetic way with titles, such as: “Do-Re-Mi,” “This Land is Your Land,” and “California Stars.”
“California Stars”. That was the song I heard Dick Pleasants play. It stopped in my tracks. I loved it the very first time I heard it. For my ears, it is the closest to a song that sounds like it came from a 1949 Woody recording session. Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett nailed it. The melody, chord progression, and the easy, carefree arrangement with snaking guitars and piano over a Stonsey-groove ala their best takes on country music like “Sweet Virginia” or “Dead Flowers.” I became so enamored with it, that it became a staple in The Mercy Brothers’ shows and ended up on the expanded version of our album Strange Adventure in 2006.
“I’d like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d love to feel your hand touching mine
And tell me why I must keep working on
Yes, I’d give my life to lay my head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to dream my troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my starbed and make another day
Underneath my California stars
They hang like grapes on vines that shine
And warm the lovers glass like friendly wine
So, I’d give this world just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars”
Go find a copy of Mermaid Avenue, and play it loud. Then, play it soft.
“Christmas in Washington”
© Steve Earle, New West Records, LLC
“California Stars”
©Words by Woody Guthrie, music by Jay Bennett & Jeff Tweedy / Woody Guthrie Publications, BMGChrysalis
For those of you in Cambridge and the greater Boston area, I will be leading a music history and appreciation course at Cambridge Continuing Adult Education on Thursdays in June and July at 6:00pm. It is called The Gathering. You can find out more and sign up here. I look forward to seeing some of you over the summer.
Catch me on the radio dial every Saturday afternoon 4-5pm EST with Crooked Road Songs on WICN 90.5fm locally in Central Massachusetts, and globally at wicn.org. My playlist from Saturday, May 24, 2025:
Frank Stokes “Downtown Blues”
Howard Tate “Girl of the North Country”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Please Crawl Out Your Window”
Mary Black “Lay Down Your Weary Tune”
The Band “When I Paint My Masterpiece”
The Candymen “The Memphis Blues Again”
Jackie DeShannon “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”
Johnny Rivers “Positively 4th Street”
Marshall Crenshaw “My Back Pages”
Mavis Staples “Gotta Serve Somebody”
Ann Peebles “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You”
George Harrison “If Not for You”
Rita Coolidge “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”
Bettye LaVette “Things Have Changed”