"Ingrid Bergman"- Love this one, short and sweet. Billy is really coming through on this project. I have the movie "Stromboli" on my watch list on the Criterion channel. It's playing now, if anyone is interested in it. The Criterion Channel is the greatest thing ever so check it out! I vacationed in Sicily and Salina Island a few years ago and wanted to make it to Stromboli. Salina is another island in the Aeolian Islands and one of my favorite places I have ever been. One day I will make it back and also visit Stromboli! 5/5 "Christ For President"- I guess I like this one more than most of you. I really enjoy Jeff's angry sounding vocal with these lyrics. The music sounds like an interesting blend of front porch country/blues mixed with some ragtime saloon music. A very successful pairing of lyrics and music. Maybe not quite a 5, but very close. 4.5/5
Same here. I mostly know Woody from Bob Dylan and from the "This Land is Your Land" song in elementary school. The only Woody album I ever bought was "Dust Bowl Ballads" which I still enjoy once in a while.
In American elementary schools, we tend to learn of “This Land Is Your Land” as a kind of alternative “America the Beautiful.” We never learn the subsequent verses that make it clear it’s a socialist screed against private property ownership. “Ingrid Bergman” is another comic ballad with a wonderful melody from Bragg. Always liked this one, though I didn’t know until now that Stromboli is a real island! I guess I always pictured it as some fantasyland à la Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. “Christ for President”—I was going to make the same point about it switching expectations for what Wilco was looking for in these lost songs. The image of Christ as a revolutionary figure who “cast the money changers out of the temple” always resonated with me. Another version we don’t get in our education.
Ingrid Bergman A nice little ditty but not a highlight either lyrically or musically. Bragg delivers a good vocal here. Christ for President Clever lyrics for sure but, as a song, it doesn't float my boat. Or raise my temple. The saloon-style piano solo is the highlight for me. In a couple of places, Tweedy sounds a little like Elvis Costello here. Not a bad song, just not very memorable aside from the lyrics, which are excellent.
I knew the name Woody Guthrie and I knew "This Land Is Your Land" but didn't really become aware of him until I heard Bruce Springsteen's Live/1975-85 album, on which he covers part of that song and gives a short preamble about Guthrie (and recommends a biography of him) before the performance. Shortly afterward I read the first of the many Bob Dylan biographies I've now read (this one by Robert Shelton, who wrote the first live review of Dylan for the New York Times in 1961). In it, I learned quite a bit about Guthrie and, of course, Dylan's obsession with him. The 1988 Folkways: A Vision Shared tribute album to Guthrie's and Leadbelly's music opened up more of Woody's catalog of brilliant songs to me, including some I had already heard covered without realizing who had written them - Ry Cooder's "Vigilante Man" comes to mind as one of those. I didn't give him a ton of thought after that until the Wilco/Billy Bragg project came out. After that, it seemed that there was a small flood of attention on both his life and his work. Jay Farrar picked up the torch on his (fantastic) Son Volt album Okemah and the Melody of Riot which features several songs about and/or in the fiery political mode of Guthrie. The New Multitudes project came not too long afterward also.
So true, although I tend to think of it as being more pro-public land! Back when Springsteen used to play it live in 1981 (and I think a few times in 1984-5 as well), he too would only sing the parts we all knew. However, when he sang it at Barack Obama's first inauguration (the pre-party the day prior, I think), he sang all of the verses. I think Pete Seeger joined him.
Well, I love both songs a lot. Wilco's song (musically) reminds me of religious campfire singalongs back when I was going to brainwashing camp as a child; this feels like "real" folk music to me, not a Wilco song --maybe the verses meander a bit too much for me. I enjoy the heck out of it. I enjoy Ïngrid Bergman" even more -- awesome, steeped in humor, got a trad feel but a clever playful sense of humor that Dylan would cop lock stock and barrel in the early sixties. Both songs very Dylan-y, but that's because Dylan is very Woody-y. I too sang the first verse of "This Land Is Your Land" as a child, it's catchy. Does anybody remember the "alternative" lyric: This land is your land It isn't your land If you don't get off I'll blow your head off...Good times. This wikipedia article on the lyric is the biggest mess I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Unreadable!
Hey Mark, I became aware of WG through Dylan as well. I first heard “Song To Woody” on his debut. What really brought it to another level was the Dylan version with backing on a boot “Almost Got To See Elvis” with George Harrison on electric. This then in turn made me love the song from Dylan’s debut. I don’t think that version with GH has ever been officially released.
Okemah, in the album title, is where Woody Guthrie was born. (Oklahoma) The other direct reference to Guthrie is the line in Bandages & Scars: the words of Woody Guthrie ringing in my head.
Jeff and Jay didn’t like the mix on the Bragg songs and I think they have a point. Their issue was that Bragg had his vocals brought up front and center with the band (Wilco) pushed to the back. Billy told Jeff, (paraphrasing) ‘you make your record and I’ll make mine.’ He later let Jay take a crack at the mixing but ultimately used his own.
Happy Father's Day to any fathers out there! I Guess I Planted According to Greg Kot in Learning How to Die, "Tweedy's eyes rolled when Bragg insisted that the pro-union 'I Guess I Planted' and the Mussolini bashing 'All You Fascists' be included in the project." I don't know where Kot got that info, or if there is a quote somewhere from Jeff saying that he didn't care for this song but it certainly doesn't sound like it on the record. Wilco as a band is in full force on this one. Great playing from everybody, including Jeff on lead guitar and Jay on organ and piano, and more of those gang backing vocals that make it sound like the entire world is chiming in. It's a rousing number with a great hook ("Union song, union battled, all added up won us all what we got now") and full participation from the whole crew. It's a pro-union song to be sure, but it features another great set of words from Woody that go far deeper than that. The first two verses talk of how the small ideas of each lone individual all add up into the larger collective big ideas that can change the world: I guess I planted some long lonesome seed of a song Way down inside me long ago And now I can't remember when it was But it joined up with the rest of them and grows It's such a little song it don't compare With all your big ones you hear everywhere But when it dawns way in the back of your mind The big ones are made up of the little kind It's really positive and the music suits that feeling perfectly. I like this one a lot and I think it shows the power of collaboration between Bragg and Wilco, rather than any sort of disagreement. If Jeff really did dislike this song, his professionalism and talent make that unimportant and you certainly can't hear it on the album.
The way Jay B. uses the Hammond B3 sounds like Steve Nieve, on some early Elvis Costello & the Attractions track (something off This Year's Model, Armed Force, or Trust). Here, Billy Bragg knows exactly what he's talking about, the lyrics being so close to his own songwriting and political sensibility. Maybe that's why he allows some of his britishness to come through ?
Great to hear this tune. I like it a lot more all these years later. @Fortuleo, you made a great call on the Steve Nieve B3 sound. Well done, sir!
"I Guess I Planted"- Another strong melody from Billy. This is a song that could be a Bragg original in lyrical content and style. How good was this band Wilco that backed him up? Beautiful swirling Hammond organ, Jeff killing it on electric guitar, and jubilant backing vocals complete with handclaps. Great song. 4.5/5
Yes, Ingrid Bergman is quite full of double-entendres and works well with the acoustic setting. Christ for President isn't bad but isn't at the level of most of the album. I wondered if they would play it when they played my town (which is famous for being right-wing with many fundamentalist Christian organizations headquartered here). They didn't, but did play Blood of the Lamb. I Guess I Planted is great, definitely the left-leaning organizing type of song, and the music has just the right feeling for it. It's interesting if Jeff didn't like All You Fascists; it's one of the project's highlights for me. We'll get to that on another day.
And a song like "Jet Pilot" is cut from the same political cloth as a lot of Woody's songs. For those who haven't heard it, I highly recommend taking 7 minutes, closing your eyes, and listening to Bob Dylan's "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie", recorded at a concert in 1963 and only performed this one time. It is riveting.
Not sure how anyone could roll eyes or dismiss including a 'union song' on a Woody Guthrie song album. To not have a couple of these on would simply be revisionist history. Great song. Great choice. Great colloboration.
"I Guess I Planted" is a great song. That organ gives this a strong Band feel - it's like it's Garth Hudson playing instead of Jay Bennett. For me, this is one of the absolute highlights of the album. Great vocal by Billy Bragg and Tweedy comes through strong on the closing "na na na"s. I love this one.
This is a really nice metaphor that I'd expect Jeff to appreciate, even in 1998. Music is a powerful force that can become even greater when it connects people, and other voices join in. And of course that applies to all sorts of unions. Bragg also wrote one of the most memorable melodies on the album; I've had it running through my mind all morning (along with the U2 record of "Jesus Christ" from the Folkways tribute album, one of my favorite tapes when I was in high school). Great song. I'm surprised that Woody never set it to music, himself.
"Ingrid Bergman" Bragg has made a career out of singing songs much like this; just him, his guitar, and a catchy little tune with a curious tale or a personal statement. And yes, it's way to short. "Christ For President" I suppose that Tweedy and Bennett were going for a folksy, ramblin' sort of vibe on this one, something that might match a tongue-in-cheek sentiment in the lyrics. I'm not sure if they really pull it off here, but it's still an amusing little ride.
"I Guess I Planted" A great track, you can hear all the band members playing in the same space. Everything comes together, where the individual contributions add up to a perfect whole. I'd say an ideal vehicle for Bragg.
