This is one of my favorite collaborations ever recorded. What’s the best way to put this? It doesn’t feel like Billy Bragg and Wilco are trying to recreate Woody Guthrie. Instead, they’re having a conversation with him across time. This is one of those rare songs that sounds like it has always existed. It makes you wonder how many other forgotten lyrics are still sitting in boxes somewhere, waiting for someone to give them a voice. If you’ve never heard the Mermaid Avenue albums, do yourself a favor and spend an evening with both of them. They’re among the finest musical tributes I’ve ever heard.
Mermaid Avenue was a collaborative album by the band Wilco and the British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. It features previously unpublished lyrics by the legendary folk musician Woody Guthrie. The album was released in 1998 and is named after the street in Coney Island, New York, where Guthrie lived. There were 3 albums in all.
I can’t imagine the pressure Bragg and Wilco felt doing this. Having the legendary Woody Guthrie lyrics in front of you and writing melodies around them. They brought in a new generation of fans to Woody Guthrie. In this song, Jeff Tweedy wrote the music around Guthrie’s lyrics. Many of these lyrics were written in the 1930s – 1940s and finished in 1997.
Sometimes the best songs take a few decades to find their melody. This song began as a set of unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics that sat quietly in the archives for years. The project was started by Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, who wanted to breathe new life into her father’s huge collection of unpublished lyrics. She invited Billy Bragg to set the lyrics to music, and Bragg, in turn, invited Wilco to join the project. They did a fantastic job on these albums.
Jay Bennett and Jeff Tweedy took Woody’s lyrics for California Stars and wrote a melody that feels like it had always belonged there. Tweedy’s relaxed vocal, Jay Bennett’s beautiful piano, Corey Harris’ lap steel, and Eliza Carthy’s fiddle create one of the warmest recordings of the 1990s. It sounds like an old American folk song, yet it also fits perfectly beside Wilco’s own work from that era. It’s simple, comforting, and quietly unforgettable.
The entire Mermaid Avenue project became much more than a tribute album. Billy Bragg, Wilco, and Nora Guthrie uncovered hundreds of Woody’s unpublished lyrics and introduced them to a new generation of listeners.
California Stars
I’d like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d love to feel your hand touching mine
Tell me why I must keep working on
Yes, I’d give my life to lay my head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to dream my troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my star bed and make another day
Underneath my California stars
They hang like grapes on vines that shine
And warm the lover’s glass like friendly wine
So, I’d give this world just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars
I’d like to rest my heavy head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to lay my weary bones tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d love to feel your hand touching mine
Tell me why I must keep working on
Yes, I’d give my life to lay my head tonight
On a bed of California stars
I’d like to dream my troubles all away
On a bed of California stars
Jump up from my star bed and make another day
Underneath my California stars
They hang like grapes on vines that shine
And warm the lover’s glass like friendly wine
So, I’d give this world just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars
So, I’d give this world just to dream a dream with you
On our bed of California stars
Dream a dream with you
