Disc 13 / 48

The Dreaded Disc Thirteen.

I love terrible covers of pop classics. It's the same admiration of camp and sincerity that makes me watch a lot of B movies, I guess. When I first burned a CD Timothology in 2000, I decided to quarantine (almost) all of the terrible covers on the set on a single disc, and 13 seemed to be the right number for a project like that. It's become a tradition because I did it more than once, and I like to think people who have bought Timothologies in the past (and who have this set) were looking forward to whatever abominations I dug up for this round.

I'm breaking two of my rules on this disc--there are two Joe Meek tracks on it (the rough demo of "Telstar" and the going-back-to-the-well "Magic Star", which proves once and for all that "Telstar" is an instrumental and shouldn't have lyrics). Not that this stopped anyone--there are multiple versions of my favorite song on this disc. English, Spanish, German and French lyrics have been supplied for the song and honestly I don't think any of those versions are improved for having them. Plus the Portsmouth Sinfonia (an untrained orchestra based in the UK in the Seventies) did a cover, and there's just no way I wouldn't use them for Disc Thirteen somewhere. Getting a pretty disastrous hooked-on-classics take on the sound of hope seems about right for this disc.

Sean Frost called this disc "a Soviet military parade of hurt feelings", which is exactly what I was shooting for. Thanks, Sean.

Timothology:  Strange Aeons Disc 13 / 48
Theme:  Awful covers
Label phrase:  "This is a pain of unreasonable proportions"

01)  Telstar (rough demo) / Joe Meek
02)  Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band / Bill Cosby
03)  Sheena Is a Punk Rocker / Mambo Kurt
04)  We Built This City / The Dondero High School Swing Choir
05)  Oh L'Amour / The Ten Tenors
06)  Telstar / The Latin Quartet
07)  Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds / William Shatner
08)  A Lover's Concerto / Mrs. Elva Miller
09)  Ca Plane Pour Moi / Sai Sai
10)  Telstar / The Portsmouth Sinfonia
11)  I Walk the Line / Leonard Nimoy
12)  Got a Horse Right Here / Revis High School Thespians
13)  Fire / Those Darn Accordions!
14)  Telstar / Les Compagnons de la Chanson
15)  Walk Like an Egyptian / The Del Rubio Triplets
16)  I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) / Dear Abbeys
17)  The Devil Came Up to Michigan / KMC KRU
18)  Magic Star / Kenny Hollywood
19)  Jailhouse Rock / Eilert Pilarm
20)  Bennie and the Jets / The Diabolical Biz Markie
21)  Have I the Right / Tav Falco's Panther Burns
22)  The Mighty Quinn / Gotthard
23)  Never Gonna Give You Up / Paul Brugel
24)  Got To Get You Into My Life / Joe Pesci
25)  Irgendwann, erwacht ein neuer Tag (Telstar) / Camillo Felgen
26)  Don't Stand So Close To Me / The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra