Covering albums in the dream world

They’re releasing a cover album of Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, which reminds me of the fact that they released a cover album of R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, which reminds me that, of anything I’ve ever dreamed of in terms of making and playing music, my biggest dream continues to be an infusion of talent big enough to cover any album of my choosing, from front to back, like Phish would routinely do with The Who’s Quadrophenia.

What’s hard is that I always have a hard time narrowing down which album I’d cover.

Most days I land on Jawbreaker’s Dear You, which is both personally influential and so packed with great lyrics that I’d probably die right there on stage just knowing I was finally getting the opportunity to rock it out forward and backward.

But that’s an easy answer, and so I look elsewhere, sometimes thinking an ironic acoustic version of Propagandhi’s super-political Less Talk, More Rock would be better suited to my tastes, or the album cut of Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense.

Ultimately, I always find myself debating the same three albums: the aforementioned Dear You, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, or Refused’s The Shape of Punk to Come.

Seconds later, I come to the dawning conclusion that, in fact, I’d have to put forth some effort into learning an instrument, and that knowing I’ll never do it, the dream will never, ever, ever come true. I’ll go back to singing the song out loud, freed of the pressure of meaningful performance.