For the naysayers: Pick up your guitar, have a go at this song, and belt it out alone in your living room. I've done this - and frankly, Tweedy puts me to shame. Now perform it solo for a few hundred people in an impromptu setting because someone yelled "Fake Plastic Trees!" instead of "Freebird!". A commenter below noted how it "starts out as a joke and then turns into a beautiful honest tribute." Absolutely goddamned right. Comparisons/this vs. that aren't really the point. Listen to it again, and even let your mind add in the Hammond organ and strings from the original. Close your eyes. Do you get it now?! It's raw, largely unrehearsed, and beautiful.
Haters are usually more full of shit than the average human being. Alone on stage without anything but a mic and an acoustic is as raw as it gets and its a beautiful cover. Anyone yapping on RU-vid about it isnt even worth the reply you gave it
OMG...I know all about Tweedy/Wilco but never heard this song originally. INCREDIBLE cover!!! My heart just grew three sizes and even cracked a lil'...
Damn. I can't believe that idiots find fault with this. This is a great musician paying tribute to another great musician. It is not supposed to be perfect here is some advice: get a guitar and try to sing this song. Impossible for 99.9 % of people. This is a beautiful version of this song.
@dpthomas37 I've made similar comparisons between WIlco and the Beatles: Wilco's Summerteeth, YHT, and Sky Blue Sky could be said to be their Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and Abbey Road, respectively.
Awesome cover. Maybe we could here some Thom Yorke covers of Jeff? I mean they area only America's Radiohead, but could we maybe hear Thom cover California Stars or maybe Gun?
I don't think it makes a difference what key he does it in, from the sound of the laughing at the begining of the clip it sounds like someone yelled out a request and Jeff was obliging them. Good for Tweedy for having a sense of humor and not being too uptight to play a great song by another great band. It makes me like him even more.
@EgoTrippin311 - i know they're both pretty mature :) just kidding around. i grew up with radiohead, and when i turned 18 YHF came out, and then wilco simply replaced radiohead within my own little world. i don't care so much for the more electronic outputs of latter radiohead, that i personally think lacks the warmth of the bends and OKC. then again, kid a is probably my favorite radiohead album. they're both great bands, i was just being sort of autobiographical. which may be stupid on YT ;)
I don't really get all the hate. If you want to hear Thom Yorke sing it listen to him sing don't listen to Jeff Tweedy and expect it to sound the same. I think Jeff did a great job with it keeping the original emotions intact. Often they are lost in covers, but this is a pretty great performance in my book.
It's near impossible to really pull off the Thom Yorke falsetto unless you are Thom Yorke. So I didn't look for how true the cover was; I looked for what it added to the song, the nuances of the differences between Yorke and Tweedy.
is that s'posed to be offensive? to answer your question: no. a simple "tweedy fake plastic trees" search on youtube can check the accuracy of someone's statement without having to go through all the trouble of stalking someone. but, either way, gold star to you for such a display of originality with your cut-to-the-bone comment.
he's dead serious. and not bad... i might have agreed with you if i hadn't grown familiar with jeff tweedy recently... this is his mannerism... if someone handed me a glass of sake for the first time today, i'd choke it down and ask "are you fucking serious?" ...for lack of a more original way to say it: taste is something you have to acquire, a lot of the time. listen to some wilco, then listen to this again. ...and anyway, anybody who loves radiohead enough to cover them's okay in my books
@apacolipps Far From a Cure fan and I was around when they were somewhat POP! You Cannot utter Radiohead and The Cure together in the same sentence. That would be like sayin Wilco is good if your a BON JOVI FAN...... Not one of those either Thank You...
to those who don't care for this cover, i'm curious why. i mean, i suppose if i heard thom yorke play "via chicago," i might have mixed feelings. but, i think i'd articular them with a bit more thoroughness.
Don't try to pass off your poor taste and opinions as fact. I'm a huge fan of Jeff Tweedy and Radiohead, and I loved hearing Jeff do one of their classics. And he did it better than most singers out there could.
@thebends28037 Because you do not like the cure you dog them, Robert Smith is just as original and talented as anyone. I love Wilco, Radiohead, and the Cure. They're a great band in itself, very talented musicians, songwriting come on if you don't like the Cure, opinions are assholes. The fact is they are/were like no other very heavy and original, some of greatest lines . Sorry and thak you, but you can't take the talent out of The Cure, Wish is just an influence in my life as being there.
As far as the inevitable Wilco-RH comparisons go, I feel there is much more warmth, joy and humility to Wilco's music; thus, they are more interesting and artistic than RH. The fact that Wilco have both an A Ghost Is Born and a Sky Blue Sky in their canon make them all-the-more human, running the gamut from experimentally paranoid to beautifully simple - albeit layered. Radiohead, on the other hand, is all "other-worldly", far more Britishly cold. Good, if you are a Cure fan, I suppose.
@deathkampdrone what? Wilco and Radiohead are both as mature as eachother. and OK Computer and Kid A are much better and more "mature" than The Bends, since you're so worried about that.
jeff should play his own songs, they're so much better. having said that, the bends is a pretty great album. wilco is like a radiohead for adults... :D
oh my god he doesnt sing it just like thom yourke, it must be terrible.... If you dont like jeffs voice thats understandable but please dont tell me its terrible just because you dont appreciate it. If I had a dollar for every time some one told me Dylan or Prine or Tweedy or someone elses voice was terrible.... please....
okay so someone answer me honestly, is he making fun of this song? or is he really that bad...? if so he fuckin butchered this song!! like watching a kid with downs sing it, still give him respect for covering it, but damn...
You really can't think this is good? I mean honestly. As a lover of music, this is awful. No disrespect to Jeff either, but this is just terrible. Please someone else tell me this is bad.
