My Top 1000 Songs #596: Graveyard Shift

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I admit, it feels a little awkward to be on our third Uncle Tupelo track on the list and only now picking up a Jay Farrar vocal. 'Cuz for all my love of Jeff Tweedy--and I've been on team Wilco ever since--Farrar's voice is truly what made Tupelo special, weathered and weary beyond his years. Here we are on their 1990 debut, No Depression, and the boys, just into their 20s, already sound like road-tested rural troubadours who've seen a lot of shit go down. 

"Graveyard Shift" does a nice job wielding the band's strengths, some old fashioned workingman's blues that bounces between a twangy little riff and just-cutting-loose Replacements-flavored post-punk fury, an alt.rock updating of 80s cowpunk that never loses sight of its heartland roots.

Check out these kids in the studio, 1989:

Live '92:

Farrar & Son Volt, 2017: