“I’ve Been Delivered” (The Wallflowers Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to Thumpin’ Thursday!  I’ve returned with a classic band that I’m very used to covering – The Wallflowers!

Fronted by Jakob Dylan, this band has been around for what seems to be nearly 20 years and has always seemed to impress me in the variety of music they have written and recorded.  There are songs for nearly every mood you can think of, and I have always been able to put this band on the Ipod (Yeah, i’ve got one now – review will be coming in the next week or two) regardless of my mood.

The song I have selected tonight is called “I’ve Been Delivered” from (Breach).  This song is unique in that there is no bridge, and the song follows the unconventional chord progression/pattern of verse chorus rinse repeat.  Naturally, like a lot of The Dylan family’s lyrics, the lyrics do not repeat.

I am very close to the 93K mark as of this evening, and I estimate that in two weeks I will tell y0u that I have joined the 6 digit club.

And tomorrow is my wife’s birthday.  Only those who know me and her know how old she will be.  But I won’t say it here.

Enjoy our latest cover video, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s guest session.  I can’t wait to see who it is and what they’re covering!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Letters From the Wasteland” (Wallflowers Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new acoustic rock cover song from the best cover music video blog on the Internet!  Although last week was fun for me — I played covers from the Counting Crows and Jimi Hendrix, which were both a lot of fun to learn and play — but this week promises to be even better.  Not only is it my turn for an Original Wednesday (when we songwriters here at the music blog break out one of our original songs), but I’m starting out the week with a song from one of my all-time favorite bands, the Wallflowers.

Which brings me to today’s video.  This is “Letters From the Wasteland” from the Wallflowers’ Breach album, which was released in 2000.  I was actually listening to my iPod on random earlier today when this song came up.  I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t already done a session of it, and I figured that Jeff might take it if I didn’t jump on it soon.  In fact, Jeff is another reason I chose to record the song.  He just recently recorded “Some Flowers Bloom Dead,” another great song from Breach.  I love that song, too, but I’ve always been taken by “Letters.”  There’s something really dark and powerful about it, and I absolutely love the drum beat and the guitar sounds.

Interestingly enough, at least for an English teacher like myself, is that the title of this song is reminiscent of T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, “The Waste Land.”  I always wondered if Jakob Dylan intended any sort of reference, but there is a key clue that makes me believe he didn’t.  Namely, the Eliot poem spells it as two words — Waste Land — whereas the Wallflowers song spells it as one — Wasteland.  This may seem like a minor detail, but you’d think that Dylan, being as careful about his wording and his songwriting as he says he is, would have picked up on such a detail.  It would honestly be one of the questions I would ask him if I ever met him…

That being said about the background information regarding the actual song, I have to say a bit about my night surrounding this music video.  What a night!  First, I’ve been hit with allergies pretty bad the past couple days, and even though I started taking allergy medication again, it hasn’t quite kicked in.  Thus, my voice wasn’t exactly angelic to begin with tonight.  Then, I kept recording takes of the song that I wasn’t really thrilled with, so by my tenth take or so (including brief false starts) I was dragging.  My throat was pretty sore.  After taking a break to watch the Mets a bit, I went back downstairs and ten or so minutes later, I had a take that I was pretty happy with.  So, I went upstairs from the studio to render my video and post it…

…only to find that the last ten seconds of the recording were all audio static!!

This was devastating to me at the time and some words and phrases slipped out that I shouldn’t repeat on a family-friendly blog.  (Well, as a quick tangent, a family friendly blog directory actually removed us from their listing a few months ago, so maybe we’ve crossed the line already…)  But, anyway, Jim swooped in and, being the computer deity that he is, spliced and salvaged my take by using footage from previous takes.  Amazing.  Even though I now owe him lunch or dinner or a drink or really any sort of food/beverage outing that he chooses, it was well worth it!  I didn’t mentally or physically have it in me to either record yet another take or to settle for a previous one.

And this brings us to the actual video.  I hope you enjoy “Letters From the Wasteland” and I hope you hurry back tomorrow for a new acoustic rock cover from our resident Wallflowers expert, Jeff Copperthite.  You’ll never know what song is up his sleeve unless you check back tomorrow…

See you next session!

“Sixth Avenue Heartache” (Wallflowers Covers)

By Chris Moore:

I first got into the Wallflowers after hearing “One Headlight,” but this song (from the same album) has quickly become one of my favorite tunes to play. We’ve played it in concert often, with Mike taking the first verse and chorus, and I certainly miss the “na na na”‘s on the final verse, but it’s still fun to play. I hope you enjoy it too!

As a side note for any die hard Laptop Sessions fans, this is actually my second time posting “Sixth Avenue Heartache” on the website. The first time, the video was online for a few hours before I realized it was in the wrong key. I’ve been playing it wrong for years! So, I came home tonight and tried it again.


The Wallflowers’ “Red Letter Days” (2002) – The Weekend Review

** This is the fifth in a five part series of music reviews, counting down from the #5 to the #1 albums of the decade, 2000-2009. As of today, the #1 album has been revealed, along with the complete Weekend Review picks for the Top Thirty Albums of the Decade! **

By Chris Moore:

RATING: 5/5 stars

Knowing that Wallflowers frontman Jakob Dylan is son of THE Bob Dylan has raised a certain bar for his career in the music industry.  And he operates, for the most part, within the confines of genres that his father helped to define — folk/country rock, rock and roll, and most recently on his solo album, solo acoustic music.

Especially considering how high that certain aforementioned bar is, the respect I have for Jakob Dylan’s style of songwriting and producing is all the more significant.

In every way that matters, Red Letter Days is the Wallflowers’ masterpiece, coming just three months after the band passed the ten-year mark since their first, self-titled release.  And if you’ve heard The Wallflowers, then you know just how far they’d come to be able to release a record as well-developed, instrumentally brilliant, vocally masterful, and conceptually tight as this one.  Lyrically, Red Letter Days is Jakob Dylan at his best, and his vocal performances, both leads and backgrounds, are outstanding — perfectly orchestrated and yet not flat in the least.

This is what drives me furious about the public reception of this band and of this album.  Jakob Dylan has a style very much his own — catchy, quirky, tight and poppy yet raw — and still there’s hardly a reviewer who can pass up the opportunity to compare him to his father or to somehow reference Bob Dylan in some way.

I know, I know; even I haven’t avoided this.

Then there is Red Letter Days, an album that combines all the compositional qualities and sonic characteristics of my favorite classic rock — great guitar effects, a solid acoustic rhythm supporting most tracks, cool bass riffs, and a strong back beat — without coming off as being derivative.  This is not a band trying to sound like they stepped out of the sixties.  They’re not a seventies jam band transplanted into the modern music market.  And there’s nothing eighties about them.  No, this is a band with its roots solidly in everything that made the so-called nineties rock revival excellent.  Two years into the new millennium, they were carrying the best of those aspects into their new album while also incorporating more experimental sounds — i.e. drum machines and other synthesized sounds typically associated with alternative rock.

Forgive me as I ascend the soapbox, but can someone please explain to me why Red Letter Days didn’t so much as appear on any of the numerous “best albums of the decade” lists that I’ve read over the past several weeks?  I cannot, for all my love of and experience with the rock music of the past ten years, sort out a justification for why Red Letter Days isn’t sitting pretty alongside such acclaimed works as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Viva La Vida, Elephant, In Rainbows, and Sea Change, all albums that I also appreciate and do, in fact, appear on the Weekend Review’s top fifty list.

Putting the soapbox aside, the Wallflowers are one of the foremost rock bands of the nineties, and despite having suffered a steady decline in popularity, have continued to produce some of the most outstanding rock albums of the 2000’s.

The Wallflowers' "Red Letter Days" (2002)

The Wallflowers' "Red Letter Days" (2002)

From the first few seconds of “When You’re On Top,” it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t your standard Wallflowers release.  This opening track is all about anxiously stretching out for something original in a society that worships the retreads, the formulas.  We’re a society that loves what we know — in television alone, consider the four Law & Order franchises, the multiple CSI‘s and the even more numerous Survivor‘s.  American Idol is the same old formula, but played out season after season.  The narrator of this song, setting the tone for this record, aches for undiscovered ground, all the while remembering that it’s always best “when you’re on top.”  This can be read as referring to some other person being “on top” in his life, or perhaps a more autobiographical reading might suggest this is Dylan singing to us after his band’s decline in popularity after Bringing Down the Horse gave way to (Breach).

“How Good It Can Get” and “Closer to You” are the perfect pair, much more straightforward rock compositions that advance the tone and themes of the first track.  The former appears to exude a confidence, the narrator nearly bragging about what he has to offer, but the latter follows up with a much slower, more introspective approach.

For the fourth track, the Wallflowers shift into an altogether new and different gear.  “Everybody Out of the Water” is some of the hardest rock Dylan and company have recorded.  It really shows their teeth and Dylan seems to delight in the apocalyptic imagery and barely-contained scream rising up in his lead vocal.

This is quickly followed up with another drastic downshift into one of the best, albeit simplest, acoustic songs that this band has to offer.  “Three Ways” is driven by a clever lyrical device that is delivered within a beautiful, mesmerizing melody.

The middle ground of Red Letter Days presents an interesting combination.  Tracks six and eight, “Too Late to Quit” and “Health and Happiness,” are dark, bitter, bile-fueled rock songs that continue with the “all hell breaking loose” vibe of “Everybody Out of the Water.”  Between the two lies “If You Never Got Sick,” which is among the best Wallflowers songs to date.  If I were asked to play one song that represented the Wallflowers at their best, this would be it.  Dylan’s lyrics are beautifully constructed, his vocals are fittingly both longing and confident, and the instrumentation is a perfect blending of strong acoustic guitars, a purposeful electric lead, and driving drumbeats.

It is, in context, a bright spot at the heart of what is otherwise quite dark.

By the time “See You When I Get There” kicks on, the clouds have begun to part.  “Feels Like Summer Again” further demonstrates a positive attitude, playing with the imagery of summer to express all the hope that the warm months represent after a cold, frigid winter and a hesitant spring.

By the time the distorted guitars and crunchy bass of “Everything I Need” wind up, Dylan is a man whose confidence has been entirely restored.  The double tracked lead — Dylan’s lower register delivery in particular — adds to the battle-hardened, yet optimistic attitude that characterizes much of the album.  As he repeats in the chorus, “You can’t save me; you can’t fail me.  I’m back up on my feet, baby.  On the way down is when I found out, I’ve got everything I need.”

The final track of the album is an acoustic-based number in the same spirit as “Three Ways.”  “Here in Pleasantville” takes a deep breath, steps back, and examines the realities of the situation that has spread out before us between “When You’re On Top” and “Everything I Need.”  And there is no more zen-like, realistic song that you’ll find on this album or perhaps anywhere.  This song is certainly wrapped up in a bittersweet haze, but there is something very peaceful about it.

Almost as an afterthought, the bonus track “Empire in My Mind” stretches out and builds up a nearly manic sinking feeling that, “There is no order, there is chaos and there is crime.  There is no one home tonight in the empire in my mind.”  After an album’s worth of confidence building, breaking down of fears and insecurities and restoring independence, this is interesting choice indeed for a closing track.

Without reservations, I strongly recommend the Wallflowers’ Red Letter Days to you as the overall best rock album of the decade, 2000-2009.  Rolling Stone might as well have ignored it altogether for the bland three-star, one-paragraph review they afforded it.  The general consuming public might as well have forgotten the band existed for the relatively poor numbers, as it came in a full 28 spots lower on the Billboard charts than Bringing Down the Horse did and has failed thus far to so much as register on the RIAA books.

Don’t make the same mistake: if you go back and pick up one rock music album from this decade, make it Red Letter Days.