Evan Dando – My (life in) music lists

100 best covers: #41 The Lemonheads “Mrs. Robinson”

By all accounts, the Lemonheads’ frontman and driving force, Evan Dando, hated the original version of the song “Mrs. Robinson”, almost as much as he disliked its author. You got the feeling he was heavily leaned on by the ‘powers that be’ to record the cover to go along with the 25th anniversary release of “The Graduate” on home video cassette. He must’ve really blown a gasket when it was tacked on to the end of the track listing on later rereleases of his band’s now classic 1992 album, “It’s a shame about Ray”.

So it’s amusing that this was likely many listeners gateway to the band. It certainly was mine. I distinctly remember recording the video during one of my Friday night CityLimits viewing sessions and falling for the update of a song I knew from my parents’ oldie radio station listening in the car. From there, I recorded the video for the aforementioned album’s title track based on name recognition and of course, I’ve already told the story on these pages on how showing these two videos to my aunt landed me a copy of the CD for Christmas. So yeah, I’ve got a history with the song.

I later developed an appreciation for NYC-based folk rock duo, Simon & Garfunkel who wrote and performed the original. Parts of it were written before the filming of “The graduate”, were shared with its filmmaker, and these appeared in the final film cut. Versions of these snippets appeared on the soundtrack but the actual full-fledged song wasn’t released until a year later as a single and appeared on the band’s fourth album, “Bookends”.

The Lemonheads’ cover has got raunchier guitars than the original acoustic finger picking and instead of the lilting harmonizing on the iconic do-de-do-do-do-do-do intro, it is Evan Dando’s solo, half hearted mimicry. Theirs is about twenty seconds shorter than the orginal but that’s probably more due to its sped up pacing. Indeed, the song is all there but the tone is very different. It rocks and rolls more and yet, it has been often criticized for being a lazy cover. And that may be so, but I couldn’t help myself but to fall hard for it, and that love hasn’t waned in the least in the 30+ years since its release.

(If you hadn’t guessed, I prefer the cover to the original here.)

Cover:

Original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

Best tunes of 1992: #24 The Lemonheads “It’s a shame about Ray”

<< #25 | #23 >>

At some point late in 1992, I babysat my young cousins one evening for my Aunt Joan at her townhouse at the other end of town. After the two girls went to bed, I slipped in a videocassette tape of recorded music videos I must’ve brought with me and opened up whatever Stephen King book I was reading at the time. The video for this particular song was playing when my Aunt came home from wherever she was and she being younger and somewhat hipper than my own parents, was actually being genuinely curious when she asked to whom it was I was listening. It was unsurprising that she had not heard of them but seeing my excitement at the band, she patiently listened to my ravings about them as I rewound the tape to the place where I knew I would find the video for the same band’s cover of “Mrs. Robinson”. She claimed to like their sound and I didn’t think anything more on the subject after going back to my own home. A few weeks later, however, while opening Christmas presents, I was delighted to receive from her a compact disc copy of “It’s a shame about Ray”. If I am remembering correctly, that was the same Christmas from which I obtained the first CD player of my own and since I didn’t have a lot to play on it yet, this new CD got a lot of playing time.

The Lemonheads are an American alternative rock band that originally formed in 1986 and save for a six year hiatus between 1998 and 2004, have existed in some form or other ever since. They are, generally speaking, the plaything of frontman/guitarist Evan Dando, fielding a pretty much new band whenever he decides to record and release a new album. For “It’s a shame about Ray”, The Lemonheads’ fifth record (second on a major label), the personnel included David Ryan on drums and the most excellent, Juliana Hatfield on bass guitar and backing vocals. The bulk of record was written in Australia with Dando’s friend Tom Morgan, the first of which was reportedly this title track, the reason we’re here today.

“I’ve never been too good with names
But I remember faces”

Evan Dando has remained vague about the meaning of the song and the identity of the “Ray” of its title. In some articles, he has been quoted as saying the line came from a newspaper article and in others, he has said it was inspired by someone who called everyone “Ray”. He even claims he doesn’t know who “Ray” is himself and likes to keep it mysterious.

Drugs, I guess.

Anyhow, it’s clear by all the past tense talk and mentions of names etched in stones that “Ray” is no longer with us, whether dead or just missing. Dando’s delivery throughout the three minute tune is suitably solemn and… just there. Really, its beauty lies in its subtlety, a simple head bopper that has these ripping guitar and drum fills between the choruses and verses. And when Hatfield appears with those soft backing vocals at the end, you just might need to shed a tear or two.