Billy Bragg and Wilco - Mermaid Ave poll

this is a good album for which I've no time anymore but I loved "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key."

"california stars" is such a gorgeous track

^^^ this

Another one for '...Minor Key'

California Stars, easy. Still my favorite thing they ever did.

^

I haven't listened to Wilco in years California Stars really is a beautiful song.

the whole story of this album is pretty interesting. Wilco apparently did not like working with Bragg at all.

Which makes me wonder what, if anything, Bragg contributed to "California Stars."

figured "California Stars" would run this, and with good cause, so I voted for "Walt Whitman's Niece," which gets the jaunty Band sound just right and throws off a bunch of solid double entendres. "Another Man's Done Gone" is also gorgeous

A great, great album. "California Stars" and "At My Window Sad & Lonely" tied at the top for me, so I'm voting for the underdog.

'the unwelcome guest' might be my pick, but idk. i think bragg's work on here is a bit better than wilco's.

I don't really listen to Wilco but I heard this and "California Stars" is just so so nice.

I really is. I've been singing it in my head since my last post.

"california stars" is pretty undeniable, yeah...
might prefer vol. 2 of this series though!

"california stars" is pretty undeniable, yeah...

Haha, I came here to post this EXACT phrase!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

'at my window sad and lonely' is my fave wilco here but voted for 'i guess i planted'. great album.

Voted Christ for President!! I like goofy WG I guess.

"California Stars" in a walk

But "Remember The Mountain Bed," the lone great track on the second volume, is better than all of these

oh man, "remember the mountain bed".

Ingrid Bergman is the real keeper.

ingrid bergman seconded. one of my all-time fave songs whose title is a person and which is about that person (which is one of my all-time fave song types).

jesus christ for president on the island of stromboli

the whole story of this album is pretty interesting. Wilco apparently did not like working with Bragg at all.

What is the story here?

Tweedy didn't like working with somebody he couldn't fire.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

well i coulda seen that one a-comin

ain't nobody who can poll like me

no votes for hesitating (aggravating) beauty?! i applaud that song for being exactly the same as lulu walls (probably others!) only with different words. why reinvent the wheel?

still the only listenable Wilco album

California Stars... the only Wilco song in my book.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/av/2015/02/song-premiere-bob-seger---california-stars.html

Hmm. Horns and backup singers, yet somehow this is not completely embarrassing.

It’s been a long time coming, but Wilco and I finally got to play the Mermaid Avenue songs together at The Solid Sound Festival and you can hear the full show by clicking the link below. But be quick - it will only be available for a few days! (Billy Bragg)

I should post the rest:

When the first Mermaid Avenue album came out in 1998, Wilco were on the verge of releasing their seminal Summerteeth album, so were weren’t able to tour together. Over the years, whenever we’ve appeared on the same bill at a festival, Jeff Tweedy has invited me up to sing ‘California Stars’ and we’ve talked about giving Woody’s songs a proper airing. But for that to happen, the stars had to align.

Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival, held biannually at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art in North Adams, has always featured the band’s many electric collaborations and a Mermaid Avenue set seemed an ideal fit. However, the festival always falls on the same weekend as Glastonbury, making it impossible for me to attend, given my role as co-curator of the Left Field.

With Glastonbury taking a fallow year out, the opportunity finally presented itself and I was able to travel to Massachusetts last weekend to spend a day rehearsing songs we recorded twenty eight years ago, many of which had never been performed live by either Wilco or I.

On Friday night, having played a solo show at the festival that afternoon, I took the stage with Wilco for a performance that was streamed live by local radio station New England Public Media.

Featuring songs from all three Mermaid Avenue albums and with special guest appearances from Natalie Merchant and Nora Guthrie, you can listen to the whole show for free for the next few days by clicking the link below.
It was a whole lot of fun. I hope we get to do it again sometime.

Would have been cool. I saw one of the Fleadh fests here in ... 1998? Pretty sure both Wilco and Bragg were on the bill, separately, but played a few songs together, can't remember what or how much.

I get "Ingrid Bergman" running through my head once a month, easy.

Do I remember right that Tweedy and Bragg didn't get along during the recording?

During final mixing per recent Washington Post article Jay Bennett from Wilco and Bragg disagreed but when they were recording they got on ok

But there was a darker side to their connection. Bragg stayed in one house with some of the musicians and studio workers. Tweedy and Bennett stayed in another, which Bragg called “the smoker’s house.” During the “Mermaid” sessions, Tweedy says, “Jay and I became drug buddies, too.”
Bennett’s run with Wilco would be short. By 2001, after helping finish the group’s breakthrough, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” he split with the band and eight years later died of an accidental Fentanyl overdose. But on “Mermaid,” Bragg discovered him as a kind of secret musical weapon.
“Jay Bennett, certainly on my songs, really made them,” says Bragg. “I mean, there was a point where Jeff said to me early on, just as an aside, ‘This record is going to be weird, right?’ … And I said, ‘Sure as f--- it is.’ And Jay was the person who made it weird.”

But Tweedy says that bad feelings between Bennett and Bragg over the final remixing of the record — they disagreed on how to do it, and Bragg took over — and also a dispute about plans for a tour meant that “Mermaid Avenue” was never heard live in its entirety. The relationship has long been repaired, but an opportunity to perform it together never materialized.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/06/26/decades-after-his-death-this-woody-guthrie-album-will-finally-be-played-live/

I was at Solid Sound last weekend, and while I've been to a lot of Wilco shows over the years, the, I don't know, tone of reverence from the crowd was palpable. Wilco is just one of those bands with a lot of rabbits in the hat.

(referring to the Mermaid Ave set w/ Bragg)

And when Wilco did their own set on Saturday, it started with Bob James doing the theme from "Taxi." Again, rabbits.

I was there as well and it was truly special. I've loved those song since they came out - it sent me down a massive alt-country rabbit hole - and it was not just wicked fun to hear them love but, as Henry said, the vibe on the field was revential. Ending with a big sing-along "This Land Is Your Land" with Nora Guthrie and her children and grandchildren was amazing. She said "I waited 28 years to get my boys together." Very very special moment.