In all (and repeated) candor, we think the lad dubbed The Tallest Man on Earth has received too much unjustified raving from critics.  It has seemed wrongly un-critical and hypocritical, if you will.  Based on his most recent release below, it turns out TTMOE might just want to skip the pretense of thinly-veiled songwriting, cut out the middle-man and only perform cover songs.  Because it’s hard to mess up beauties like Damien Jurado’s Working Titles, one of our Best Songs of 2012 (still to come).  Check out TTMOE below with his wife Idiot Wind’s Amanda Hollingby Matsson.  Working Titles is a song from Jurado’s 2012 album, Maraqopa (also one of our Best Albums of 2012).  After the cover, check out Jurado’s fine take.  The lyrics are at bottom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8gwPVsS1TE&feature=em-uploademail

Working Titles:

“You could mess up my life in a poem
Have me divorced by the time of the chorus
There’s no need to change any sentence
When you always decide where I go next

Many nights you would hide from the audience
When they were not in tune with your progress
In the end you’re a fool like the journalist
Who turns what you sing into business

You could use to be more like a hero
A darker shade of damage distortion
Wearing death like a cape or a costume
Cut your ties and leave town when you want to

Killing time ’til I pass through the chamber
Or the room you keep my replacement
so fed up, still you’re starving on paper
You’re no him, but he’s you, only better

Leave me an exit to damage
I could use a ledge to jump off of
I wasn’t lying when I said this was over
I have questions that lead to more questions

Running time that will cut off my fingers
You wrote about me on every new record
And I’ll show up in a title of your song
I only hope somebody requests it

What’s it like for you in Washington
I’ve only seen photos of Washington
I’ll never know

Leave me Manhattan, I want the evergreens
Write me a song I can sing in my sleep
As sure as the rain that will fall where you stand
I want you and the skyline, these are my demands

What’s it like for you in Washington
I’ve only seen photos of Washington
I’ll never know, know”