Tribute Album

Parsley, 01/28/03

The CNF virtual mixtape

I read an album review one time - unfortunately I can’t remember where - that said something like "if all those ridiculous tribute albums could be more like The Replacements’ Alex Chilton instead of lame covers, maybe they would be worth listening to" - after all, the honoree is obviously great if a tribute is being assembled, so how could some young upstarts possibly do better with the same material? In that spirit, here’s a listing for a tribute album of all original songs.

I have actually collected all these songs on one CD, not really because it’s great listening (though all these songs are good) but as proof of concept. But since this is a virtual mixtape, I’d encourage you to get on Kazaa or whatever and find all these songs yourself. I’ll try to leave my connection open so you can get them from at least one person. But if you are really that lazy, send me a couple bucks for materials and shipping and I’ll gladly send you a copy (eventually).

By the way, I’m sure I left another dozen or so good songs off this list. I’d love to hear your suggestions and will add any qualified ones to the bottom of the list.

  1. The Replacements, "Alex Chilton"
    "Children by the millions sing for Alex Chilton when he comes round"
    Starting things off with the song that started it all. A great song for a great songwriter. Could you ever really live like a normal human being once you knew someone had written something like this for you? Like whenever Chilton faces some minor hassle it must be tempting to just say "Well, I inspired a Replacements song - a good one. Did you?" On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that Alex Chilton is not all that famous so most of the time it’s probably a little sad to think that somebody wrote a song about you and here you are buying the cheap brand of laundry detergent.
  2. They Might Be Giants, "We’re the Replacements"
    "Hi, we’re the Replacements, and we’re playing in a rock & roll band."
    See the chain here? Nice, huh? I kind of wonder if this was really meant in a tributory spirit, but it’s a cool song and if someone wrote it about me I would be thrilled. A rumor started that TMBG actually used to be roadies for the ‘Mats. Anybody who’s actually seen the band should realize how ridiculous this is ("maybe universe man can help you move those crates!"). I wish I had a tribute to TMBG so I could keep the chain going, but the only one I know of was written by the band themselves and I don’t think that counts. So on with the show.
  3. Bob Dylan, "Song for Woody"
    "Hey hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song."
    Going back into the tradition with one of the oldest songs on this list. This was on Dylan’s first album, but it’s a pretty great song. His definitive statement on Guthrie, though, was "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie," a poem. Also: "Woody Guthrie was the last idol I ever had, because he was the first one I ever met." If you look around the Internet, you can find a live recording of this song by Uncle Tupelo. They blow a lot of the lyrics and sing some verses twice, but it actually works.
  4. The Jayhawks, "Miss Williams’ Guitar"
    "I remember watching her play, and the whole damn crowd seemed so far away."
    This might not actually count; the songwriter is Miss Williams’ Husband. But the song is about her music, not the relationship between them, and it’s a great song so I included it. If that guitar solo didn’t get him into Miss Williams’ Pants we should all just give up. Please note: this song refers to Victoria Williams, who is a good deal weirder and maybe a little cooler than all those other Miss Williamses.
  5. Pavement, "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence"
    "There are some bands I’d like to name-check, and one of them is R.E.M."
    It’s hard to know what to make of this song. It starts out as one of the few Pavement songs that make any literal sense, as Malkmus offers his opinion of various early R.E.M. tracks. But by the end it’s a civil war story and the only connection I see is that R.E.M. is from Georgia. Supposedly Michael Stipe heard this song in a hotel room and pronounced it great.
  6. Charles Mingus, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat"
    (instrumental)
    This doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the list, but it’s pretty neat and it adds some variety. It gets bonus points for not only paying tribute to Lester Young but imitating his style. Mingus was good at writing songs about people; the same album had "Bird Calls" for Charlie Parker and "Fables of Faubus" - imagine how mad you would be if somebody wrote that one about you (or if you haven’t heard it take my word).
  7. Drive-By Truckers, "Life in the Factory"
    "They named their band Lynyrd Skynyrd, after the coach who kicked them out of school."
    Actually these guys did a two-disc concept album about Skynyrd (and "the duality of the Southern thing"), but this seems like the most concise tribute to the band and is one of the hardest rocking tracks here. Buy this album, and play it loud. It’s one of the best things I’ve heard in a long time. I hear these guys were opening for Skynyrd a while back. That must have been pretty strange for everyone involved - the DBT shared a stage with their subject, the audience has to listen to a rather-punkish-for-that-demographic band who may or may not be totally sincere in their devotion to the Skynyrd Boys, and the headliners have to follow a band who just spent a half hour saying how great Skynyrd is while actually rocking twelve times harder than LS ever could.
  8. Robyn Hitchcock, "I Saw Nick Drake"
    "I saw Nick Drake, and he was fine."
    Why do you suppose no rumor ever sprung up that Nick Drake didn’t really die (cf Jim Morrison, JFK, and need-I-say-it Elvis)? I can’t speak for other Nick Drake fans, but I don’t think I would want to meet him. He doesn’t seem real, and that kind of works for him in a perverse way. So is it the case that by revering Nick Drake’s music and legend you have to secretly be glad he died? Heavy stuff. But rest assured, when Hitchcock sees Drake he makes a total ass of himself - "I said you’re tall" - like Nick doesn’t get that all the time.
  9. Motörhead, "R.A.M.O.N.E.S."
    "R-A-M-O-N-E-S, R-A-M-O-N-E-S, Ramones!"
    Actually, the Ramones eventually recorded a cover of this song and their version (a tribute to themselves) is a lot better - Lemmy doesn’t exactly have a light touch on the vocals. This is a great song, though, and the love really comes through. Of course, everyone worth listening to loves the Ramones, but this is probably the best tribute. The Mr. T Experience has also written several odes to the band.
  10. Wesley Willis, "Alanis Morissette"
    "Alanis Morissette, Alanis Morissette"
    Let’s face it, I could have filled this whole album with Wesley Willis tribute songs. That would be basically unnecessary, though, since there are a dozen or so albums like that out already. I chose this one because it’s so ludicrous to imagine a situation where Willis and Morissette are friends, or even where they meet each other. What did she say when she heard this song (assuming she did)? Was she scared? Baffled? Did she pretend to like it to impress her hipster friends?
  11. Uncle Tupelo, "D. Boon"
    "Do you remember, remember D. Boon? Part of what he was is a part of me now."
    Maybe the tail end of this compilation is a little overburdened with rock numbers, while the beginning is fairly soft by comparison. But here’s the secret: I’m just listing these in the order I think of them. I can’t believe it took me so long to "remember D. Boon." An interesting thing about this song is that while it’s ostensibly a tribute to the deceased Minutemen front man, it ends up being mostly about the narrator (Jeff Tweedy). But in a way, what he says here about D. Boon is what all these songs are trying to say: "Part of what he was is a part of me now." And that makes it a good closer for the tribute album. This is also one of the songs I’d point to if I thought I ever had a chance of convincing anyone that Tweedy has lost his way - See? he can rock out.