During the Mountain Goats recent Daytrotter session, John Darnielle did his part to bring reggae music back into the fold to an audience that may have written off the genre as bad “lifestyle” music that is sadly way too often co-opted by cruise ship commercials and bad beach bars.
His stripped down cover of “Babylon Burning” exudes the best of the songs raw essence. A genre staple, check out The Upsetters sixties version below, and be sure to read Darnielle’s track notes below along the rest of their Daytrotter session.
John Darnielle’s notes on the cover song: “A doubtless ill-advised attempt to sing a song I’d been listening to a lot on the tour that led up to this session. I’ve I.D.‘d it as a Peter Tosh song, but it could be a Bob Marley song: there’s a version available by the Wailers, but it was from when Tosh was in the band, and the melody sounds more Tosh than Marley to me. Either way, white dudes with acoustic guitars are probably better off not attempting to cover reggae songs, and if further evidence of that were needed, well, here you are. Still, the walkdown on the third line of each verse is kinda awesome, however hard it is to hear over that guy who keeps yelling.”
Elsewhere: Download the entire Mountain Goats Daytrotter session
Download:
MP4: Mountain Goats :: Babylon Burning (sendspace link)
MP3: The Upsetters :: Babylon Burning
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www.mountain-goats.com ++ www.daytrotter.com ++ emusic
+ Download Mountain Goats through eMusic’s 25 Free MP3 offer.
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+ Visit The Hype Machine for additional Mountain Goats MP3s.
There’s always the epic Babylon’s Burning by the Ruts although it’s a different song entirely.
1 | will June 21st, 2007 at 5:02 pm[...] New Music Friday: Twenty-Eighth Edition Before I post this week’s NMF, I would like to say that I’m excited to hang out with MSZuneFan. While it’s not Zune that’s flying him here (our buddies at on10 are flying him), I’m really curious to meet such a dedicated Zune supporter. Anyways, without further ado, more free music for your Zune: First up this week, grab these two fun tracks from Brooklyn Vegan. My Old Kentucky Blog has two MP3s from Lexington, Kentucky band Petticoat, Petticoat. Bringing us the “anti-Summer Jam Song” Music for Robots posts a track by Funeral. And for those who would prefer a peppy song, check out this post. The Front rock Rockinsider. Never heard them before? Download them. Different Kitchen posts a link to the Ski Beatz Beatz, Rhymes & Samples mixtape. Ok, some of you might be too young to remember this, but do you remember that Biz Markie song “Just a Friend?” That song was something of a junior high anthem for me. Anyways, Soul-sides has the original track. It’s by the late Freddie Scott (RIP) Fans of Ladytron will (probably) love Client – Chromewaves has 2 tracks. Cool. There’s a New White Stripes track over at Fluxblog. Coffinberry has a track that will rock you, as it has Rocked Cleveland. Go download it! An Aquarium Drunkard has an MP3 of the Mountain Goats doing a reggae cover. And last but certainly not least, GorillavsBear has a Feist remix. Previous New Music Fridays. Enjoy the free music and have a great weekend everybody! | Friday, June 22, 2007 8:52 PM | 0 Comments Tags: new music, MP3, Friday [...]
2 | Zune Insider : New Music Friday: Twenty-Eighth Edition June 22nd, 2007 at 1:47 pmI think I have died and gone to _____. Babylon Burning is so raw and powerful. It really left me speechless.
3 | Helen June 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 am[...] I was reading Aquarium Drunkard the other day and saw this post – Under the Covers – Babylon Burning, my heart started to thump faster as I read the post and then when I clicked on the links and listened to the music, I had chills running down my back like I have never had before from a song and it was not just from the title track but the other 3 songs from the session as well. Talk about raw JD! [...]
4 | me, my camera and my life. » Babylon Burning June 30th, 2007 at 2:47 amUnlimited Zune Downloads…
“Microsoft said that its Windows Media Player will recognise Zune content which might make it possible to put the content on a PlaysForSure device. However, it said it would not provide customer support to anyone attempting this.”…
5 | Unlimited Zune Downloads July 11th, 2008 at 4:47 amJa Bless
6 | Jenny October 13th, 2009 at 10:07 pm