Jet Set Records
2004
Songs We Should Have Written
About This Album
Following the over-thought, overwrought carnival that was The Man on the Burning Tightrope, Firewater's covers album, Songs We Should Have Written sounds fresh, and perhaps paradoxically, more like Firewater than the band's previous album did. While the songs and artists the group chose to cover don't exactly trace their influences -- circus music and at least a couple of traditional Eastern European instrumentals would have to be added to even begin to be complete -- it's clear that the mix of alienation, sardonic humor, righteous anger, and occasional moments of beauty in these songs make them Firewater's spiritual forebears. On songs like Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On," which features longtime collaborator Jennifer Charles of the Elysian Fields as Cher to Tod A.'s Sonny, the band strike a good balance of being faithful to the original version of the song and bringing their own identity to it (and manage to transcend the dated quality of lyrics like "the miniskirt's the latest thing" to boot). And the version of "Diamonds and Gold" by Tom Waits -- whose music is a direct influence on Firewater's -- emphasizes his famously skeletal percussion, but also brings in gypsy violins to give the song more color.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,6 and 7)

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