mp3 - Sparklehorse with Flaming Lips

I posted several songs from the 2-CD Daniel Johnston tribute album, Daniel Johnston Discovered Covered. I considered not posting anything else from it, thinking maybe this is getting old. It's not. Both of the CDs in this set are enduring, and will give you a lot of mileage. My favorite track changes from one week to the next. Maybe next week I'll post an original Daniel Johnston song, after leaving Michigan, and my lonely CDs warmly welcome me home.

For now, here's Go, covered by Sparklehorse with the Flaming Lips, originally from Daniel Johston's Respect (1985).


Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse)

The lyrics are simple, seemingly a song of encouragement from Johnston, reassuring a friend (you) that you'll find true love or whatever it is you seek: To understand and be understood/is to be free/So I think that you should go/Go on ahead/Take her in your arms and be wed/Go go go go you restless soul/you're going to find it/Go go go go you restless soul/you're going to find it.

But listen to it enough times, and eventually you'll pause, suspecting that Johnston is telling you that you'll find it, because you're not him. He's a wounded soldier on life's battlefield, resolved to stay behind, telling you to carry on. Maybe Johnston isn't capable of carrying joy: Yes, life's a bowl of cherries/You can have as many as you can carry/And someone once said that life is like a cow/But I don't know how that applies.

For all of you who got new guitars for Christmas, the lyrics and tablature are here.

Sparklehorse with the Flaming Lips - Go (mp3)