California Stars
Woody Guthrie's words, Wilco's music and Jeff Tweedy's lead vocal.
Billy Bragg, from Mermaid Avenue (1998)
- Written by
- Woody Guthrie, Jay Bennett, Jeff Tweedy
- Released
- 1998
- Length
- 4:57
- Album
- Mermaid Avenue
The second track on Mermaid Avenue has words by Woody Guthrie and music by Jay Bennett and Jeff Tweedy, written in 1997. Tweedy sings lead and plays acoustic guitar, Bennett plays piano and sings backing vocals, John Stirratt plays electric bass and Ken Coomer plays drums. Eliza Carthy adds violin and Corey Harris lap steel guitar.
Writing in 2012, Pitchfork's Stephen M. Deusner said the loping melody and longing vocals by Tweedy turn it into an especially wistful West Coast reminiscence and one of Wilco's best songs. A 2000 Pitchfork review of the second volume said the Smithsonian's Woody Guthrie exhibition used Bragg and Wilco's version of California Stars on its video soundtrack, and that nothing on that second volume was as beautiful.
More songs by Billy Bragg
A New England, Levi Stubbs' Tears, Greetings to the New Brunette, Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards, Sexuality
Sources
- Mermaid Avenue, Wikipedia
- Billy Bragg / Wilco: Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, Pitchfork (2012-04-27)
- Billy Bragg / Wilco: Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II, Pitchfork (2000-06-30)