red house painters - star spangled banner

i love mark kozelek/sun kil moon.  as a lover of all things sad, lonely, and depressing musically, he is hands down one of my favorite singers.  he also is known for doing really interesting cover versions of popular songs.  he’s done an entire album of modest mouse covers and, even more oddly, an entire album of AC/DC covers.  this dude makes AC/DC sound beautiful, which is a weird thing to even say.

the predecessor to sun kil moon was a band called red house painters which put out a bunch of albums in the 90s.  i have a handful of their records, but recently stumbled upon ALL of them.  so for the past few days, i’ve been enjoying their entire catalog and discovering more amazing music.

this track was the last song on one of their self-titled albums.  as soon as i saw it on the track listing, i was like “no way.”  but they actually pull it off. 

a sad beautiful cover of… the star spangled banner.  who even knew that was possible?