Song 1 – The Magician

By: Jason Isbell

Album:  Sirens of the Ditch, 2007

The version I play is a bit swiped from some video I found of him playing this by himself in a record store, but he has a ton more guitar flourish than I do.  I honestly like mine better.

Song 2 – Simple Twist of Fate

By: Bob Dylan

Album:  Blood on the Tracks

I’m doing about as verbatim as you can do a Dylan song.  Most of them you can’t.  But this needs nothing else – it’s perfect exactly as it is, at least for my purposes.

Song 3 – Only Children

By: Jason Isbell

Album: Reunions

Just my dumbed-down version of what Isbell does so exceedingly well.  The album version is deeply haunting.

Song 4 – The Factory

By: Warren Zevon

Album:  Sentimental Hygiene

He does it with a band banging and a bunch of harmonica, which was impossible for me to recreate in any way, so I just turned it into a simple blues riff.

Song 5 – Running On Empty

By: Jackson Browne

Album: Running on Empty

This is pretty much my own creation.  I found the acoustic chord progression (and weird Open G tuning) on a video of some British show years ago and then just slowed it down entirely and went to straight fingerpicking vs. strumming.  I actually think my version better suits the lyrics.

Song 6 – A Fond Farewell

By: Elliott Smith

Album: From a Basement on the Hill

I swiped this version almost exactly from a cover done by Jessica Lee Mayfield and Seth Avett doing something on KEXP.  Video is here – I don’t know if this is on any album.

Song 7 – Goddamn Lonely Love

By: Drive By Truckers

Album:  The Dirty South

This in an Isbell song start to finish, and the version of it I do most closely resembles a version he did at some Paste Magazine showcase in New York not too long before he got sober.  I’ve quieted some of the guitar and added some stuff I like, but it’s still not as good as his.  Video is here.

Song 8 – Heart’s Too Heavy

By: John Moreland

Album:  High on Tulsa Heat

He does this as a straight-up slow blues riff with a full band, and it’s excellent.  My solo acoustic version is my own, but I think it works for what I’m doing.  I like his better, though.

Song 9 – Go It Alone

By: Jason isbell

Album:  Here We Rest

I’ve actually never heard the album version.  I learned the song from the same show as “Goddamn Lonely Love,” but mine has a bit more bite and rhythm to it.  Probably my favorite song to play – it just fits.  Video is here.

Song 10 – Remember Me

By: Steve Earle

Album:  The Lost Highway

He played this song at his songwriting camp I went to in 2014, but both there and on the album, he played an Octave Mandolin (Bazooki), and I wish I could re-create that noise but it’s not like a guitar and I can’t play a Bazooki.  So I did my best to capture the flavor. His version is devastating.

Song 11 – Heroes

By: David & David

Album:  Boomtown

I love this song. The day I quit my job to start my new company, I sent a personal email out to everyone I knew giving them my new cell phone number and just quoting the first part of the song.  I had a couple people check in on my mental health – which I think says more about theirs than mine.  On the album, it’s sublime with slide and just awesome vocals.  I took it way, way down to do it this way, but I still like it and will always play it.  “…Past the punks and the drunks and the bad guitar players…”

Song 12 – Visitor

By: John Moreland

Album: Visitor

He does everything better than me, but it doesn’t matter because the song is so simple but so powerful lyrically it hardly matters.  Guy knows some shit.

Song 13 – Goodbye

By: Steve Earle

Album:  Train is Comin

I don’t like the album version of this one bit, and I never would have picked it from that.  But he played it much the way I play it (except better) at the camp and I have a recording of it and it’s about perfect.  I changed a few words in this because he was writing about what he did wrong (as he often does), but I flipped it around a bit for my purposes.  Also one of my favorite songs to play.

Song 14 – Decoration Day

By: Drive By Truckers

Album: Decoration Day

This is the first song Isbell wrote for these guys after he sat in for a missing guitar player with them one night and left in the morning in their van as a full member of the band at something like 21 years old.  Title song on the album and also a true story about people related to him.  Family feuds – why drag your kids into it?  The distortion he uses on the album perfectly captures the anger in the lyric.  I was going to play it on electric with distortion, but a) I’m a terrible electric guitar player, and b) getting the sound figured out without a delay in an already-too-long show was too complicated.  So, I sort of compromised and distorted an acoustic guitar and just controlled the violence with my speed and power on the strings.

Song 15 – Minutes to Memories

By: John Mellencamp

Album:  Scarecrow

The version I play does not even remotely resemble what’s on the album – it’s pretty much ripped off – short of the ad libs – from a YouTube video of him doing it with just an acoustic guitar at FarmAid years ago.  Video here.  He also admits at the beginning of this version, the song has a very different meaning today than when he wrote it — and he doesn’t admit the old man was right, either.

Song 16 – Tennessee Blues

By: Steve Earle

Album:  Washington Square Serenade

My version is extremely dumbed down from the album or even the solo acoustic version he played at camp (which is my favorite).  I meant to learn to play it that way but ran out of time.  All of his are better.  

Song 17 – Lies I Chose to Believe

By: John Moreland

Album:  Big Bad Luv

His version has this great pounding snare drum throughout that keeps it moving without a ton of guitar.  His is definitely better, and damn the guy can write.

Song 18 – Good While It Lasted

By: Jason Isbell

Album:   Foxes in the Snow

Thankfully, this is one of the easier ones to play on this album, which is a solo acoustic masterpiece.  As usual – just my dumbed down version of his brilliance.

Song 19 – My Stunning Mystery Companion

By: Jackson Browne

Album:  Solo Acoustic Volume 2

My dumbed down version of his most excellent solo acoustic arrangement. I simply love to plsy and sing this - particularly now that I have someone to sing it for.

Song 20 – Tangled Up In Blue

By: Bob Dylan

Album:  Blood on the Tracks

Musically, this is somewhere between the album and a version he does on Real Live.  But he’s written new and modified versions of various verses over the years, and I have collected the ones I like best – and mashed them together and also put them all in the first person (he goes back and forth on every version I’ve ever heard).  Besides being my “signature song” for much of my life, the version I play has a lot – a lot – of overlap with my own life.

Song 21 – Bury Me

By: Jason Isbell

Album:  Foxes in the Snow

Same story here.  Trying my best to do something that approximates what he does on the album, but this guy is a deceptively good player.  Crazy good.