Not being an idiot or insane, I do realize that leather can't sing. That's obvious. It's like how a future collaboration between the dead John Steinbeck and the dead John Fante is an impossibility. The likelihood of one is the same as the other, which is to say: zero. Still, I can't help but feel that this version of "Marie" sounds more or less exactly like leather singing the words of Johns Steinbeck, Fante. A narrator not unlike Fante's Arturo Bandini - impoverished, self-destructive, immature, an artist of sorts - sings of hope and survival (or not) in the unadorned language of Steinbeck, in a voice soft and cracked like an old tanned hide.
[Buy]
Posted by Jordan at April 2, 2008 11:36 PMFante is a master.
And this song is wonderful.
Van Zandt was a master. Heard yesterday "Tecumseh Valley" covered by Earle Sr. A true masterpiece.
Posted by: Parisian Cowboy at April 3, 2008 7:37 AM