he's been absent as of late; he liked to hang out by the lake
Did you know that Jackson Browne, amongst his performing talents, wrote the song "These Days" and also played the guitar on Nico's version? His recollection:
That song. That song just calls out, needfully, playing itself in your own personal soundtrack at just those times.
I've heard two amazing covers of it, one by Mates of State and one by Elliott Smith. Which to love most? They're all great, but Nico's version captures best the beauty of the guitar bit with the laconic singing. I can only imagine if Nick Drake had ever covered it the whole world would have cried at once.
And I sit here, beer by my side and not writing fellowship applications, fellowships that I got rejected for before and don't feel like being underqualified for again, and I just want to hear that song. All three versions, playing endlessly in a loop until I fall asleep and dream of Gwyneth Paltrow in slow motion, stepping off a Greyhound bus.
"I forgot that I'd licensed them [Royal Tenenbaums] to use this song. And this is one of those things that comes to you in the mail and you don't know what they're talking about and you simply give them their permission. You're sitting in the movie theater and there's this great moment when Gwyneth Paltrow is coming out of a bus or something like that. I'm thinking to myself, I used to play the guitar just like that. And then the voice comes on and it's Nico singing 'These Days', which I played on."
That song. That song just calls out, needfully, playing itself in your own personal soundtrack at just those times.
I've heard two amazing covers of it, one by Mates of State and one by Elliott Smith. Which to love most? They're all great, but Nico's version captures best the beauty of the guitar bit with the laconic singing. I can only imagine if Nick Drake had ever covered it the whole world would have cried at once.
And I sit here, beer by my side and not writing fellowship applications, fellowships that I got rejected for before and don't feel like being underqualified for again, and I just want to hear that song. All three versions, playing endlessly in a loop until I fall asleep and dream of Gwyneth Paltrow in slow motion, stepping off a Greyhound bus.
random bits cobbled together by j-dub
2 Comments:
I hope you get your wish. And while you're wishing why not imagine a Nick Drake version too?
I have a version from his relatively recent solo acoustic album. I listened to it in the middle of the night (working nights) after I read this post. It is followed, in my iTunes, by Birds of St. Marks, a song he wrote for Niko.
The two songs left me sitting nearly motionless with a half finished History and Physical in my lap.
My resident walked in, looked at me, and asked, "Uh...you okay?"
"Yeah," I said, "I was just, um...somewhere else, I suppose."
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