Of all the musical collaborations that come to mind, none is as both as lovely and as rambunctious as Mermaid Avenue, the album Billy Bragg and Wilco recorded of music they set to the lyrics of the greatest folkie of them all, Woody Guthrie. It never fails to move me, or do a silly dance as Jeff Tweedy sings in the great “Hoodoo Voodoo.” Kindred spirits, Bragg and Wilco achieve an amazing feat; they provide ingenious musical settings for songs that Guthrie, who’d written the lyrics, was too sick to write music for due to the physical impairments of Huntington’s Disease. It’s truly a masterpiece this one, and never fails to remind me of E.M. Cioran’s comment that “What is not heartrending is superfluous, at least in music.”
It was Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, who offered the lyrics to radical folk singer Billy Bragg, who went to Wilco about recording an album. The sessions ended up being stormy; Wilco’s Jay Bennett felt that Bragg’s musical settings were too ornate, and there was a falling out. Bennett called Bragg about re-recording some of Bragg’s recordings, to which the Englishman replied, “”You make your record, and I’ll make mine, fucker.” But things were finally settled, and I’m of the opinion that Bennett overreacted; the songs sound all of a piece, like a latter-day Basement Tapes.
From the wild opener, “Walt Whitman’s Niece,” a raucous and harmonica-fueled tune featuring group vocals and a spoken section by Bragg about a run-in with a woman who claimed to be Walt Whitman’s niece to the sublimely beautiful “California Stars,” the album will make you dizzy with joy from the start. “California Stars” boasts an ethereal melody that will make you swoon, some lovely piano and guitar, and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy on vocals. He wants to make lay his head on a bed of California stars, and violinist Eliza Carthy helps provide the beautiful sound that makes the song altogether irresistible. That and Jay Bennett’s piano, and lots of guitars. One of my favorite songs of all time, this one.
“Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key” is a touching piece of braggadocio by a boy who knows “ain’t nobody who can sing like me.” He may be ugly, but Bragg’s vocals and Natalie Merchant’s backing vocals prove his point, as Bennett’s Hammond organ, Carthy’s violin, and Elizabeth Steen’s accordion provide color to the palate of the song, which is also guaranteed to make you swoon. I’ve never been crazy about Merchant’s solo turn on “Birds and Ships,” which is stripped down to just her vocals and a strummed guitar. It reminds me of a Pentangle song, and while ethereal, is too slow and lacking in melody for my liking. Fortunately it’s followed by the sheer joy that is “Hoodoo Voodoo,” which has a fast-paced Dylanesque carnival feel to it and features Tweedy straining his vocals to a great rhythm background and Hammond’s B-3 organ. “Kissell me now,” he sings over and over, overcome by the sheer joy of living, and I could listen to this song 100 times in a row and never grow tired of it.
“She Came to Me” features Bragg on lead vocals and some cool harmonica, and looks forward to a day when we’ll “have all of the fascists out of the way by then.” It’s a sweet number, as is the slow and doleful, “At My Window, Sad and Lonely,” a song of broken love that features Tweedy on vocals and Bob Egan on slide guitar and a nice instrumental passage that just might, if you listen to it thinking of an old love, bring tears to your eyes. “Ingrid Bergman” is a light and absurdist number about the actress, and is stripped down to just vocals and an acoustic guitar. The singer wants to take Ingrid to the island of Stromboli, and sings of a mountain that has been waiting for years for her to “touch its hard rock,” which may be a sexual innuendo or not. On “Christ for President” Guthrie wants to put Jesus in high office, and it includes some great honky tonk piano, funky percussion, and a lot of anger about the way things stand in the world. Me, I can’t get over that piano, and the Dylanesque feel of the piece, and it segues nicely into Bragg’s bigger sounding “I Guess I Planted,” with its great group choruses and it’s pro-union message. Bennett contributes some Dylan-like Hammond B-3 organ, and Tweedy plays a cool electric guitar solo, and the backing vocals are to die for. It’s anthemic, this one, and makes we want to join the music reviewers union, except there isn’t one. Music reviewers, Unite!
“One by One” is the next best song on the LP to “California Stars,” and you got that from me. It starts slowly and grows and grows, Tweedy repeating “one by one” as “the days of life go by.” Bob Egan plays some lovely pedal steel, Bennett once again works miracles with the Hammond B-3 organ, and this song is pure sad magic, what with its doleful marking of the inexorable passage of time. Bragg’s “Eisler on the Go” has always seemed like a week point to me—a relatively stripped down folk tune that doesn’t boast much of a melody. Historically it’s interesting; Hanns Eisler was a German composer who worked with Bertolt Brecht and was deported from America after being blacklisted by Hollywood and testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee for being “the Karl Marx of Music.”
“Hesitating Beauty” is a sweet and fast-paced country tune with Tweedy on vocals and could find a place on the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty. It’s an idyll of two people who want to marry and “spend their lives in love,” but she’s hesitant and he’s in a rush. “Another Man’s Done Gone” is just Tweedy and piano, and it reminds me of a Randy Newman song without the satirical lyrics. It doesn’t do much for me, but it’s only a minute-and-a-half long and Tweedy communicates a lot with his vocals. As for LP closer “The Unwelcome Guest,” Bragg sings and Egan plays some deliriously lovely pedal steel while Tweedy contributes on harmonica. It’s a song about robbing the rich to feed the poor, and it builds to a lovely climax, with him eluding the “rangers and deputies” paid by the rich men to catch him and hang him. He knows he’ll be caught one day and killed, but he knows his saddle will always be filled by the unwelcome guests who will follow in his path.
Bragg and Wilco must have overcome their differences, because they’ve since released two sequels to Mermaid Avenue. I can’t say I like them as much as the first one, but “Airplane to Heaven,” “Secret of the Sea, and “All You Fascists” off Vol. II all blow my mind, as do “Give Me a Nail,” “Ain’t Gonna Grieve,” and “Listening to the Wind That Blows” off Vol. III. What Bragg and Wilco have done over the course of the three LPs is not just a public service, but a miracle.
Guthrie was a great American and champion of democracy and the common man, who traveled the country with his guitar with “This machine kills fascists” scrawled on it, and who said, “Left wing, right wing, chicken wing,” which just about sums up my view of politics. He loved his fellow man, excluding fascists, cops, politicians, and bankers, and actually believed this land was made for you and me, and if you’re cynical like me you may say “right” but there’s no doubt that Bragg and Wilco do a wonderful job of capturing his dedicated but caring spirit. Which will live on as long as there are exploiters in our midst, or in short, forever.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
