Frank & Earthy

"As I Went Out One Morning" - Why? (download) (buy)
from Our Unusual Animals, v. 4 7-inch (2008)

Every time I tried to imagine Why? leader Yoni Wolf doing Bob Dylan, as was announced a few months back, my brain started to hurt. It's not that I thought it would be bad--I didn't--so much that I just couldn't conceive of Dylan's melody parceled by Wolf's metrics. But, here it is, a 7-inch b-side in Asthmatic Kitty Our Unusual Animals series, and it makes sense, of course: a nice addition to the contemporary Dylan cover canon. It's an interesting little window into Wolf's singing in general, too. He manages to fully articulate the melody while creating the illusion that he is speaking, never singing at all. It is casual, even conversational, and all in the annunciation. Sleight-of-hand. Or sleight-of-tongue, I suppose. The arrangement helps immeasurably, shifting the chords with lush authority, and doing much of the work.