mp3: east river pipe- atlantic city (gonna make a million tonight) [link expired]……….. [buy]

east river pipe’s the gasoline age was one of my favorite older albums that i picked up last year. i mentioned that it was soltero’s professed love for the record that lead me to seek it out, so it was no surprise to me when tim posted this cover of “atlantic city” on his myspace page a few months ago. at nearly 10 minutes, “atlantic city” is clearly the album’s centerpiece and a truly ambitious song choice for a cover.

tim doesn’t attempt to match the grandeur of the original– instead he replaces cornog’s beautiful arrangement with a single acoustic guitar and condenses the song to just over 3 minutes. and it works fairly well. cutting away all of cornog’s instrumentation forces you to focus on the raw emotion of his lyrics, filled to the brim with hope and disapointment. little is lost in translation there, tim sings cornog’s words as if they were his own. though it may not have been much of a stretch– as equally talented and under appreciated songwriters, i’m sure the two have a good deal in common. nothing can beat the original through a pair of headphones, but i can’t possibly fault tim for wanting to share his interpretation of a song he loves — especially when he sings it so nice. and if you don’t own the gasoline age, go pick it up. you won’t regret it.