A new compendium of Peter Gabriel cover songs, And I’ll Scratch Yours, was released today.  The album features the likes of Elbow, Paul Simon, Lou Reed and Joseph Arthur.  The fantastic Feist also appears (together, curiously, with Timbre Timbre) covering Gabriel’s perfect Don’t Give Up, which you can listen to below.  To our ears it’s a marked improvement over Arcade Fire’s unimaginative version of Games Without Frontiers, which you can listen to HERE.  At bottom, you can watch (via Stereogum) Gabriel himself perform the song with Feist on his tour in 2012.

And I’ll Scratch Yours Tracklist:
1. David Byrne – “I Don’t Remember”
2. Bon Iver – “Come Talk to Me”
3. Regina Spektor – “Blood of Eden”
4. Stephin Merritt – “Not One of Us”
5. Joseph Arthur – “Shock the Monkey”
6. Randy Newman – “Big Time”
7. Arcade Fire – “Games Without Frontiers”
8. Elbow – “Mercy Street”
9. Brian Eno – “Mother of Violence”
10. Feist – “Don’t Give Up” [ft. Timber Timbre]
11. Lou Reed – “Solsbury Hill”
12. Paul Simon – “Biko”

After their High Violet touring ended and before they began recording Trouble Will Find Me, The National took time out to capture their live rendering of Little Faith (from High Violet) at a castle in the Hudson Valley.  As with most of Matt Berninger’s lyrics, each of us takes our own from his tragicomic words and lines.  Here, you might ponder burning blueberry fields.  Or you might play nuns versus priests on your own.  Or you might Peckinpah a fire to see what it kills.  For us, we’ll take a little faith to follow us around.  And all the while the horns and strings play on, and the Devendorf brothers lay down the perfect rhythmic propulsion and display.

The song’s lyrics follow the video.

Little Faith:

“Little faith, follow me
I’ll set a fire in a blackberry field
Make us laugh or nothing will
I’ll set a fire just to see what it kills
Now we’re stuck in New York and the rain’s coming down
I don’t feel like we’ll go anywhere
Stuck in New York and the rain’s coming down
Still in line for the vanity fair

Leave our red southern souls
Head for the coast
Leave our red southern souls
Everything goes

All our lonely kicks are getting harder to find
We’ll play nuns versus priests until somebody cries
All our lonely kicks, they’ll make us saintly and thin
We’ll play nuns versus priests until somebody wins

Awesome prince, get your sleep
Lose your heart in history
Make us laugh or nothing will
I’ll set a fire just to see what it kills

Don’t be bitter, Anna, I know how you think
You’re waiting for Radio City to sink
You’ll find commiseration in everyone’s eyes
The storm will suck the pretty girls into the sky

All our lonely kicks are getting harder to find
We’ll play nuns versus priests until somebody cries
All our lonely kicks, they’ll make us saintly and thin
We’ll play nuns versus priests until somebody wins

Leave our red southern souls
Head for the coast
Leave our red southern souls
Everything goes”

We were were surprised to learn that two talented, but decidedly different, artists, Eleanor Friedberger and Wesley Stace (formerly known as John Wesley Harding before reverting to his real name), had co-written all of the songs on Friedberger’s Personal Record album released this summer. Two of the song highlights on Personal Record are Stare At The Sun and When I Knew. This week Wesley Stace released his self-titled debut album that also includes those two songs. Listen below to the decidedly different takes (and connotations) on the songs by the two artists. You pick ’em.  We like ’em both in their own ways.

Last night Elvis Costello appeared again with The Roots on the Jimmy Fallon Show and performed Cinco Minutos Con Vos with Marisol, and all was right with the world.  Watch as the atmospherics explode while the Ghost of Joe Strummer (Wise Up Ghost!!) sings from the sidelines.  Credit to Marisol for carrying the melange, while Elvis mostly just read along (for the second time, but who’s counting?).  Viva la!

We wrote earlier this week of our latent discovery of Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel.  Obel has subsequently released the live performance below of The Curse off of her new album Aventine (which will be released on September 30th).  Check out the mesmerizing, hypnotic delivery below.

Amanda Palmer is out on what she’s dubbed her Ninja Parade in Australia.  On the first stop on the Parade, she sang Radiohead’s Creep at the Wellington City Library.  Watch below as the Wellington audience chimes in well and Palmer (accompanying herself on ukelele) hits amazing (not creepy) notes (at 1:50).  Beauty amongst the dampened f-bombs.

The National have recently made their cover of Perfume Genius’ heart-rending Learning a standard part of their live set.  Earlier this year the band released the recorded version as a bonus cut on their release in Japan of a deluxe version of Trouble Will Find Me.  Check out their take on the song below.  You can also listen to it HERE.  The two artists’ motifs are so perfectly tangled up in blue here that one can imagine the Ohioans summarizing:  “Like it was written in my soul from me to you.”

Neko Case out touring in support of her new album The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You.  In support of the new tongue-twisting album, Ms. Case recently paid a visit to CBC’s Studio Q to perform the song Local Girl from the new album.  Check out this beauty below with the superb vocal backing of Eric Bachmann and Kelly Hogan.

Jim James (My Morning Jacket) has been on tour in support of his debut solo album, Regions Of Light And Sound Of God. Last night James appeared on Jimmy Kimmel and performed State Of Art (A.E.I.O.U.) and the web-exclusive A New Life. Check out both sterling performances below.  While in LA, James also performed a set for KCRW, which will be broadcast on the station’s Morning Becomes Eclectic show on September 26th.

We will sing the praises and songs of Damon Albarn (Blur, The Good, the Bad & The Queen, and Gorillaz) until the cowz come home.  Albarn is one of our best living songwriters and is still delivering the song goods after nearly 25 years of honing his craft.  We recently stumbled upon two particularly charming Gorillaz performances in 2010 for BBC Radio 1 that feature Albarn’s evocative vocalisms.  Check out Albarn and the boys performing On Melancholy Hill, followed by a fine cover of The xx’s Crystalized with singer Daley adding vocals behind Albarn.  Superb sounds once again from Damon Albarn.

Photo by Linda Brownlee.