Putting together a respectable cover song is tough, and listening to a bad cover is even tougher. The idea of a song being butchered for the sake of a YouTube video or a dimly lit acoustic open mic is enough to break a music fan’s heart, leaving pieces of love and unauthorized use in its wake. It is a sad day when you hear your favorite song torn to pieces, but compared to the joy of hearing a cover song appropriately done, it makes it all worthwhile. Hüsker Dü’s take on “Eight Miles High,” Florence Ballard’s “Walk On By,” Frank Ocean’s “Moon River” are just a few examples of one-off covers that bring new energy to timeless classics, but what happens when you’re given nothing but raw lyrics? Where is a band to go when someone else’s words are in your hands, and they’re yours to present to the world for the first time? Thankfully, our answers are held within Mermaid Avenue Vol. II, the Billy Bragg and Wilco collaborative album with previously unreleased lyrics by the great Woody Guthrie.
Mermaid Avenue Vol. II was released 25 years ago on May 30, 2000. It is the second of three installments of the collaborative effort overseen by Guthrie’s daughter, Nora. Bragg and Wilco modernize these timeless words, which date back to as late as 1939, with Wilco’s complex guitar layering emphasizing the warmth of Bragg’s lo-fi vocals. Guthrie is one of the most celebrated singer/songwriters in American music history, so doing his words justice is nothing short of a miracle. Mermaid Avenue Vol. II does just that and still hits your heart and rejuvenates your soul even 25 years after these 50-year-old songs were brought to the public for the first time.
On top of the pressures of taking Guthrie’s old poems and setting them to melodies, Bragg and Wilco were also feeling the weight of success from Mermaid Avenue Vol. I. The initial batch of Guthrie covers, released in 1998, was welcomed with open arms and praise from critics and hardcore Guthrie fanatics. The weight of Guthrie’s legacy and following up on a hit were on their shoulders, but Bragg and Wilco did what they do best; they got to work. These 15 songs were recorded across Boston, Chicago, and Dublin with producer and frequent Bragg collaborator Grant Showbiz. The results are lo-fi folk rock bliss with beautifully haunting undertones that add a layer of peacefulness to this timeless collaboration.
Critically, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II was not the runaway success of its predecessor. The album received a lukewarm response from Pitchfork, The Guardian, and Entertainment Weekly, while Q, Rolling Stone, and the Chicago Sun-Times all gave it four out of five stars. Regardless of the public perception at the time, Wilco and Bragg released a far cry from an artistic failure. Nora Guthrie assembled this project with the intention of sharing these lyrics with a new generation of musicians, who could present her father’s words to a younger audience. In that regard, Bragg and Wilco achieved this effortlessly.
The team of Bragg and Wilco added splashes of modern elements to Guthrie’s words to create a scenic bridge between generations, free for us to walk across and visit another era in this country. They brought eerie backing harmonies and jangly pop to “Hot Rod Hotel,” incorporated surf-rock tropes into “Secret Of The Sea,” and straddled the line between nostalgic folk and blissful modern twang on “Blood Of The Lamb.” Not only did Wilco’s head-spinning musicianship and Bragg’s acrobatic vocals breathe new life into Guthrie’s words, but the words themselves have miraculous modern applications. “Against Th’Law” mocks the same authority figures Guthrie was against when he wrote the song in 1947, while the minimalist album closer “Someday Some Morning Sometime” proves that longing can sound lovely, and that sometimes, the longing never stops.
Mermaid Avenue Vol. II is 25 years old, and the lyrics are even older, but when combined, they create a modern artistic marvel.
