The Lemonheads’ new album, Varshons (The End Records), kicks off with Gram Parsons’s “I Just Can’t Take It Anymore,” in which the resigned, lovelorn protagonist declares, “Well, we could’ve done a lot / We certainly did not / So I’ll try to do the things I did before.” In his own way, Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando — who is the ‘Heads, for all intents and purposes — is declaring the same: He’s only released two studio albums of original material in the past decade. And though the Lemonheads have recorded a bunch of covers over the years, starting in 1986 with Proud Scum’s “I Am a Rabbit” and including “Luka” and “Mrs. Robinson” along the way, Varshons is the revolving-door band’s first all-covers LP (unless you count his solo 2001 country-covers EP, Griffith Sunset). As Dando told Australia’s Time Off magazine recently, “I refuse to [write songs] on purpose. I’m always playing a guitar, but I refuse to go ‘OK, I’m going to write a fucking song today even if it sucks.’”
Fair enough. So until the next album of Lemonheads or solo Dando originals sees the light of day, we have this collection of 11 songs that Varshons producer Gibby Haynes, otherwise known as the leader of the Butthole Surfers, has put on mix tapes for Dando over the years.
Dando’s goal was for Varshons to have the grab-bag variety of a mix tape, which it achieves in fits and starts, but most of his interpretations here are filtered through his admiration for Parsons and the late musician’s country-rock sensibilities. (The word “versions,” if said with an English accent, will apparently get you “varshons,” but you can also reach that destination by way of a southern twang.)
Hearing Townes Van Zandt’s “Waiting Around to Die” (”His name is codeine / And he’s the nicest thing I’ve seen / Together we’re gonna wait around to die”) in this context isn’t a surprise, but Wire’s “Fragile” and GG Allin’s “Layin’ Up With Linda” aren’t the most likely candidates for steel-guitar revisionism. Punk-rock outlaw Allin was known for his deeply misogynistic lyrics, but Dando makes the black comedy of “Linda” palatable, providing just the right amount of sociopathic pouting to lines like “One day I just got bored and killed her / She used to be fun.” It’s also the third murder ballad by the Lemonheads in as many albums, following Car Button Cloth’s “Knoxville Girl” (1996) and The Lemonheads‘ “Baby’s Home” (2006).
