I admit, I’m not as familiar with The River in Reverse as I’d like to be. I guess that’s because half of it is a covers album and the other half is a collaboration with an artist I don’t know well.
But the few times I’ve listened to the record, I’ve always liked what I’ve heard. It’s funny… I’m bothered when I like an album too much to write it off but not enough to really learn it. Albums like this live in a musical purgatory.
But a clip like this one, featuring Costello and Toussaint performing their song ‘Ascension Day’ in a grungy wood-paneled room, makes me want to pull the album out of limbo. I love informal recordings like this one, videos that really make you feel what it was like to be in that room listening to these men make music.
Not a bird was singing, at least not within my hearing
I was five minutes past caring
Standing in the road just staring
Thought I heard somebody pleading
I thought I heard someone apologise
Some fell down weeping
Others shook their fists up at the skies
And those who were left
Seemed to be wearing disguises
Now there’s a queen in waiting
Not enough loving and too much hating
For the prince hidden within her man
Always seems to be hesitating
He said, Let her go, let her go, God bless her
She hasn’t been gone long enough for me to miss her
Except every minute of every hour of every day when I wish I could possess her
40 days passed by
40 alibis
So carry on… that way
And in time… you’ll pay
But we’ll all be together
Come Ascension Day
Not a hound was howling
Or whimpering or prowling
Now the wind had departed
Not a leaf was hanging on the tree like when it started
But I know they will return
Like they’ve never gone away
Come Ascension Day
Meet Me In Montauk 
What a cool video? I feel like I just invited these guys into my living room to play.
That first sentence should have ended with a !, not a ? 🙂