My Top 1000 Songs #837: Up With People

[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.]

Can't say I listen to Lambchop that much these days. Kurt Wagner and his large coterie of musicians have produced some weirdly interesting and often striking music, somewhere between freak folk and Americana and indie rock and blue-eyed soul, and I kinda got into them back around the time of 2000's Nixon, when I saw them open for Yo La Tengo. There were about a dozen players jammed onto the stage, and Wagner's rustic oddball strikes a compelling figure, so I did spend a bit of time with their music after that. But, while I continued to pick up their new releases, they ended up among the artists in my collection for whom I have great respect, and occasionally love, but sometimes have to remind myself to dust off their records.

Still, that record's "Up With People" has never left my head. It's just a basic three-chord pattern, slowly building over the gentle lope of the song, rising from Wagner's gentle, world-weary croon to all-in brass-abetted gospel, and before you know it has the feel of this massive anthem without ever straying from its core, laid back simplicity. It's one of those tracks that shows up in my dreams periodically, simple yet endlessly inviting, a backdrop for wild imaginings. Crazy video, too.

Live, double-speed, 2009: