sometimes you just know something is going to be great. peter buck on a replacements song? is there a better song in the entire world? talking heads covering al green? such a good idea!

given his performance on the falsetto-y “mr. tough” (a song my dad likes) from “i am not afraid of you and i will beat your ass”, one might surmise yo la tengo bassist james mcnew could do an excellent prince (if one had plenty of free time to go about surmising). that'd be a good idea. in fact (awkward segue) mr. mcnew, under the guise of his dump moniker, recorded an entire album of prince covers a few years back.

now prince, being the obsessive control freak he is, wasn’t very happy about it and the album’s out of print, i believe. you can still track it down though, and it’s definitely worth a listen just for the covers of “raspberry beret” and “another lonely christmas”. the best song though is james’ drone-y (surprise!) version of “when you were mine” from “dirty mind”:

dump—“when u were mine”