Song in my Head this Week: Wreckless Eric

My wife and I disagree on what makes good music, sometimes. I turned her on to the Black Keys and the Flaming Lips, and she hooked me on the Fratellis and the Roots. She prefers classically trained singers who can really belt it out, who sound the same on stage as in the studio, like Muse for example.



I lean more towards singer-songwriters who can often write better than they can sing, but give everything they've got. Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, Janis, and... Wreckless Eric. His song "The Whole Wide World" has been covered numerous times by better singers than he, but I like the balls-out, barely coherent original. When Eric warbles and growls that he'll go the whole wide world to find the girl meant for him, you know damn well he will, and he won't stop walking after 500 miles. No, he'll crawl on his belly in the sand and the grit like a leopard-skin Terminator, until the girl crushes him in an industrial press.



Not a bad song at all to have stuck in your head. Eric also wrote "Be Stiff," which was covered later by Devo. This album's a lost gem of pure energy, and I urge you to seek it out.





© 2012 Thomas Pluck


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