The Book of Drugs<\/em>.<\/p>\nAfter reading the book I felt guilty about often referring to Doughty as “the guy from Soul Coughing” (as I did at the start of this post), but later realized that wasn’t really such a sin. I wasn’t calling him “one of the guys” from an old band, but specifically “THE GUY” — as in the one and only. In the eyes of my younger self it was his band, they were his songs, and he can and should take them with him to do whatever the heck he wants with him. So I was especially excited to learn he was taking them back in an attempt to reclaim them for himself and purge the demon of a dark time in his life.<\/p>\n
The differences in the new Doughty versions vs. the old Soul Coughing versions vary a bit, but all in all I’m really digging the re-done versions. “Sleepless” loses the lo-fi intro I never really liked and gender swaps the personified sleep character to make the lyrics work better. I have a vague recollection of sitting in a car outside a party listening to the original “How Many Cans?” when a friend said “this song would be awesome if the music part was better.” Seems he was right. “True Dreams of Wichita” has always been one of my favorite songs by any artist, and the new version further cements it for me — even improving on it by nicely retconning the awkward “stand on the corner and bellow for mush” lyric with the far better “stand in the branches of a juniper bush.” \u00c2\u00a0(Plus I love the inclusion of “I Miss The Girl” since the line “going down to Baltimore, going in an off-white Honda” is among the top utterances to slip out in my lifelong battle with lyrical tourette’s.)<\/p>\n
Of course playing the comparison game sometimes exposes some questionable calls on the new takes. Does “Dumb” really benefit by taking away the cello? Was “Monster Man” really worth redoing when most of the lyrics were skipped? How would Kurt Cobain have felt about the whole reissue\/anniversary type thing? \u00c2\u00a0That’s a loaded question that’s pretty much impossible to answer. Doughty’s change of heart around revisiting his past illustrates that anyone’s perspective can shift — and that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My original plan wasn’t to review these two albums together, but when the synergy hit me I couldn’t pass it up. Nirvana & Mike Doughty somehow managed to intertwine themselves with my musical DNA years ago and haven’t ever let go.\u00c2\u00a0Nevermind was my first favorite album and the one that pretty much made me who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[35,33],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-mike-doughty","tag-nirvana"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfx3-p8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1697,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/ramblings-viii\/","url_meta":{"origin":1558,"position":0},"title":"Ramblings VIII","author":"LBDG","date":"May 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I mentioned before that I've only had 3 favorite albums in my lifetime. A three day stretch in April had me revisiting the whole Nirvana catalogue for the 20th Anniversary, the release of 6 new Benji Hughes songs, and the announcement of a new Mike Doughty album. Synergy is cool.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc Debris"","block_context":{"text":"Misc Debris","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/misc-debris\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/mike-doughtys-handwriting\/","url_meta":{"origin":1558,"position":1},"title":"Mike Doughty’s Hand(writing)","author":"LBDG","date":"October 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a couple of recent questions about the font on the setlists in the paperback, which caused me to realize I never blogged about the origin of that in any detail. Could have sworn I did, but a quick scan of the archives proves otherwise. Here we go: Once upon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mike Doughty's Handwriting, Ghostwriting for Local Boy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/Screenshot_21-300x132.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/of-the-year-2009\/","url_meta":{"origin":1558,"position":2},"title":"Of The Year – 2009","author":"LBDG","date":"December 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've always wanted to \"officially\" track a best of the year music list, and figured here would be the most appropriate place to do it. 1. Sad Man Happy Man -- Mike Doughty I had huge expectations going in after an interview said this would sound like Skittish & Rockity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":936,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/apophenia\/","url_meta":{"origin":1558,"position":3},"title":"Apophenia","author":"LBDG","date":"May 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Some things I'd like to think took inspiration from Timely Persuasion, but probably didn't: LOST - \"Across The Sea\" The recent \"Across the Sea\" episode of LOST features two nameless main characters. \u00c2\u00a0The only named character in TP is Nelson, the alleged bad guy. But is he really bad? \u00c2\u00a0The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc Debris"","block_context":{"text":"Misc Debris","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/misc-debris\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1499,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/of-the-year-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":1558,"position":4},"title":"Of The Year – 2012","author":"LBDG","date":"January 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Play 'Em All experiment meant that I didn't give new music the attention I usually do in 2012, but that doesn't mean I don't have a top list. (And yes, once again I was too busy\/lazy to post this when I should have so I'm time traveling back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1545,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/a-wiki-edit-that-makes-me-sad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1558,"position":5},"title":"A Wiki Edit That Makes Me Sad","author":"LBDG","date":"September 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This isn't the kind of time travel I like :( Benji Hughes - Wikipedia February 2013 Edit: August 2013 Edit: Guess Thao & The Get Down Stay Down won't have the competition for album(s) of the year I was hoping they would. (Then again, Mike Doughty has this thing coming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"2013-09-11 09.49.03 pm","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/2013-09-11-09.49.03-pm.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}