these girls singing make me very happy.
thanks for the heads up about fleet foxes. i hadn't heard them either, but i like them.
That last sentence is my favorite.
I love Fleet Foxes too, and that cover was amazing.
that last sentence is gorgeous and true...wow.
wow zan. wow/
its just so good.
McGrew: You especially would know how good.
What a lovely post! And thanks for the introduction to this music.
Just found you through Sweet Juniper. This is beautiful. Thank you.
i just saw them play in Portland after being very excited about them all summer. i stupidly thought that they wouldn't be able to pull off all of that loveliness live, but i was sure wrong. especially during Tiger Mountain Peasant Song when the rest of the band went off stage and Robin sang by himself. for the first time in a long time, i was brought to tears at a show. just magical.
jtb - That's exactly how I imagine it would be. The emotion in the melody and in those lyrics is almost too much to stand - I get goosebumps just thinking about hearing it live.
This gave me the loveliest break in my day, and something to hum while in the shower. Now I'm dying to go try to figure out how Doris Day hooks up with my dad's blues albums. I'm so glad Sweet Juniper pointed in your direction!
Yeah, that last sentence. I wish it weren't so true.
As I read this, I couldn't stop thinking about I could have written this entry [though not as eloquently as you]. I found about Fleet Foxes from Dooce about a month ago, right before I began my second year of medical school, an association that will surely never be lost in my brain. I shot links of White Winter Hymnal to all of my brothers, the same brothers who used to dance to CSNY and The Doobie Brothers, crackling and popping over my father's record player. I burned him a copy of the CD too.
And here I am, talking to him on the phone, his spooky chemistry-loving-folk-song-listening cover version talking about how times are tough, how money is tight, how we get through things.
Beautiful.
I like Fleet Foxes but I like those girls singing that song EVEN MORE. And I love this post: you're absolutely right.
jb - I think everyone should send their dad a copy of this album.
Conceived and executed brilliantly-- so true, for better or worse.
I adore this band. I'm seeing them in November, 5 months pregnant, but it will be worth it. The crowd will give me a wide berth, I'm sure.
Such an inspirational post, great music. I discovered both the Fleet Foxes and your blog through Sweet Juniper, and you truly summed up my youth and love of records and music.
I'm gobsmacked (and I'm not even English!).
Wow. Thanks so much for the beautiful start to my day. I was in the dark about the Fleet Foxes but not any more. What a beautiful sound.
Your writing is beautiful.
oh. oh man. i have this thing about cover versions of songs. i think they arent successful unless they take the original and tip it at least slightly on its ear and make you look at it in a different way. bring something 'buried in the mix' to the fore. maybe something not intended by the original artist, but nonetheless a valid interpretation, all things considered. to think of successive generations doing that exact thing for each other is so brilliant i havent righted myself yet...thank you. (btw-a friend directed me to this post cuz it reminded him of how i talk about my family, and that video could be straight out of my high school years with my brother...singing simon and garfunkel, tho...) again, thanks.
I just returned from the house where I lived as a child. My mother is on the verge of putting it on the market. I went through the collection of LPs I remember from decades ago and selected almost a hundred to bring home. My life is nothing like the life of my parents, but I am grateful for the music.
I've come back to read this post and to listen to the Girls cover of the Tiger Mountain song again and again this week. Both of my parents died recently, ( well, seems fairly recent anyway), First one and then the other. My mom from cancer, and then my dad from alcohol and loneliness, and some unfathomable sadness. I love the idea of being a cover version of my parents. Hopefully taking the best and making it better. Hopefully not making the same mistakes or being felled by misfortune. Thanks for the great thought provoking post.
Becky
Becky,
I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to lose my parents. I know it's something we have to face one day, but it's just not something any of us likes to think about.
I do imagine, however, that ideas like this might be comforting to me when my parents are gone. The fact that I might have offered you the same sort of comfort is more than I could have asked for in writing this.
Keep taking the best and making it better.
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