[2008-05-20] Scarlett Johansson "Anywhere I Lay My Head" Tom Waits covers album (guest: Da

Linda · **Posted:** Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:42 am

http://www.nme.com/news/david-bowie/34337

David Bowie announces new collaboration

Feb 13, 2008

David Bowie has lent his voice to the forthcoming debut album by Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson.

Bowie provides vocals on two songs on the record - ‘Fannin’ Street’ and ‘Falling Down’.

The album, entitled 'Anywhere I Lay My Head', features ten Tom Waits covers. It is set for release in the USA in May.

Billboard reports that Bowie met Johansson at a party, where she asked him to contribute to the album.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner features on Scarlett Johansson's album too.

The debut album by the actress is comprised almost entirely of Tom Waits covers, with one Scarlett original, 'Song for Jo', as its centerpiece. Dave Sitek produced and members of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Celebration, and Stars Like Fleas play on the release. A pair of tracks; Falling Down and Fannin' Stree feature guest vocals from David Bowie. Warner. 2008.

‘Fawn’
‘Town With No Cheer’
‘Falling Down’
‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’
‘Fannin' Street’
‘Song for Jo’
‘Green Grass’
‘I Wish I Was in New Orleans’
‘I Don't Want to Grow Up’
‘No One Knows I'm Gone’
‘Who Are You?’

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014IH1N6/?tag=imwan-20

Linda · **Posted:** Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:42 pm

http://www.nme.com/news/david-bowie/34655

David Bowie: 'Scarlett Johansson's performances are mystical'

Feb 25, 2008

David Bowie has spoken about his work on Scarlett Johansson’s debut album, a collection of covers of Tom Waits songs.

The rock legend added backing vocals to two tracks on 'Anywhere I Lay My Head' - 'Falling Down' and 'Fannin' Street'.

Posting on his official site BowieNet, the singer said: “The songs are great, really good Tom Waits stuff, and Scarlett's performances are mystical and twice cool. She creates a mood that could have been summoned by someone like Margery Latimer or Jeanette Winterson.”

However, the veteran artist played down his contributions to the record, saying: “I've seen the press on this and I suppose the record company wanted to spin my involvement a little more than it actually warrants. All I contribute are these oo's and ah's on a couple of tracks.

“[TV On The Radio’s] David Sitek, the producer, originally asked me to do three songs, but for one of them, ‘I Don't Wanna Grow Up’, I didn't feel I could contribute much to it, so I left it alone.”

Renny · 26 Jun 2006

supposedly scarlett and penelope cruz have a heck of a love scene together in the new woody allen movie.

renny

Jimbo · 19 Jul 2006

Renny wrote:

supposedly scarlett and penelope cruz have a heck of a love scene together in the new woody allen movie.

renny

Yo Renny:

This topic has its own thread here:

http://www.imwan.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=25818

Renny · 26 Jun 2006

Jimbo wrote:

Renny wrote:

supposedly scarlett and penelope cruz have a heck of a love scene together in the new woody allen movie.

renny

Yo Renny:

This topic has its own thread here:

http://www.imwan.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=25818

jim,

yes it does!

and i even commented on it, wow!

getting old just sucks.

renny

Linda · **Posted:** Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:00 am

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertai ... 5720080213

Scarlett Johansson unveils debut album

Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:37pm EST

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Actress Scarlett Johansson says Tom Waits has given the thumbs-up to her debut album, which features covers of 10 tunes written by the notoriously persnickety musician.

"Anywhere I Lay My Head" will be released May 20 via Atco/Rhino. David Bowie, whom Johansson met a party just prior to beginning work on the album, lends his distinctive vocals to the tracks "Falling Down" and "Fannin' Street," while Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and members of the band Celebration contribute throughout. The album was produced by Dave Sitek of the New York rock band TV On The Radio.

The album also boasts one original tune, "Song for Jo." Johansson said she initially considered making an album of standards, but the project slowly morphed into a Waits-dominated affair. "His melodies are so beautiful and his voice is so distinct," she said at a news conference Tuesday.

"I sent him some of the early, early recordings, and he said, 'Go ahead,'" she added. "I've heard he's very pleased."

There are no plans for Johansson to perform live in support of the project, but she says she'd be intrigued by "getting everybody together," perhaps at a festival, at some point in the future. "It would be a missed opportunity not to."

Reuters/Billboard

Linda · **Posted:** Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:36 pm

http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/uncut/news/11263

SCARLETT JOHANSSON'S TOM WAITS' COVERS ALBUM PREVIEWED!

As a rule, we’re as suspicious of actors making records as we are of, well, rock stars appearing in movies. But Scarlett Johansson’s previous, if brief, forays into music have at least demonstrated both the requisite flashes of talent plus a penchant for cool. There’s an abiding memory of her in a pink wig singing karaoke to The Pretenders’ “Bass In Pocket” in Lost In Translation, or seen in fuzzy Youtube clips providing backing vocals for “Just Like Honey” at the Jesus & Mary Chain’s comeback show at last year’s Coachella festival. She also recorded the Geshwin standard “Summertime” for a US compilation and even starred in a Bob Dylan video, “When The Deal Goes Down…”, to support his Modern Times album.

Now she’s recorded her debut, an album of Tom Waits’ covers (and one self-penned track), produced by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek and featuring guest spots by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s guitarist Nick Zinner and, on two songs, David Bowie, with whom she co-starred in Christopher Nolan’s movie, The Prestige. Most of the songs come from the later part of Waits’ career, with only one song pre-dating 1983’s Swordfishtrombones.

Here, then, is our track by track preview at what you can expect…

TRACK BY TRACK: Scarlett Johansson: Anywhere I Lay My Head

1. “Fawn”
(Taken from Tom Waits’ 2002 album, Alice)
A bit of a cheat, this, as it’s an instrumental track. But, it does efficiently set out the album’s sonic template – loosely, somewhere between late period Cocteau Twins enhanced by the gentle sprinkling of magic dust that accompanied Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs. A gentle organ intro before a wave of brass comes crashing in, then straight into…

2. “Town With No Cheer”
(Swordfishtrombones, 1983)
Scarlett privileges the storytelling aspect of Waits’ original, recalling here Marianne Faithfull as she half-sings, half-speaks the lyrics. Waits’ version is pretty sparse – just his voice recounting the lyrics accompanied by keyboard and accordion. Initially, this version doesn’t stray too much from that: the backing is organ, and keyboards with the occasional burst of guitar, but gradually Sitek layers on sax and drums and pushes the organ further up in the mix.

3. “Falling Down”
(Big Time, 1988)
This was the only studio cut on Waits’ ’88 live album. Here, Scarlett sounds very like Liz Frazer, which is effectively the vocal setting she operates in for much of the album. Her voice is perhaps deeper and less sharp than Frazer, but it works convincingly in the musical context, which Sitek describes as a “cough medicine tinker bell vibe.” And, yes, her voice sits surprisingly well with Bowie’s harmonies. There’s sleigh bells and a xylophone, while a haunting guitar motif towards the end recalls Mercury Rev’s “Endlessly”.

4. “Anywhere I Lay My Head”
(Rain Dogs, 1985)
Instead of the opening drunken trumpet reverie of Waits’ original, we get a soft, drum pattern intro and the swish of a keyboard and accordion. Scarlett sings defiantly “I don’t need anybody because I learned to be alone” against a stunning church organ crescendo.

5. “Fannin’ Street”
(Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers And Bastards, 2006)
The drum intro is worryingly reminiscent of “Feed The World”, but let’s accentuate the positive. Scarlett’s take on one of the “blues” tracks from Waits’ triple album is suitably downbeat, again half speaking the lyrics by way of privileging the song’s narrative, Bowie adding rather mournful backing vocals, gently cautioning her against visiting that titular address.

6. “Song For Jo”
The only original composition on the album, written by Johannson and Sitek. “Do you remember how we fell asleep on the bathroom floor/It wasn’t always pretty/On the white tiles…” Scarlett half-sings, half-whispers over soft acoustic guitar loops and soporific drums. The vibe is woozy, approximately a bottle of Benylin's worth.

7. “Green Grass”
(Real Gone, 2004)
Against the soft whir of cicadas, a loping xylophone melody and occasional bursts of surf-style guitar, this sounds like it should be on the soundtrack to a mid-period David Lynch film.

8. “I Wish I Was In New Orleans”
(Small Change, 1976)
One of the most atmospheric tracks on the album, and the earliest Waits’ song included here. Sitek replicates the piano line of the original on a music box, which provides pretty much the only backing here, aside from layers of swooshing ambient sound. There’s something quite funny, too, about hearing Scarlett announce “I’ll drink you under the table”, in the same breathy, “Happy birthday, Mr President” style as Marilyn Monroe.

9. “I Don’t Want To Grow Up”
(Bone Machine, 1992)
Also covered by the Ramones, on their last album 1995’s Adios Amigos!. With Eighties’ pop keyboards and drum machine patterns (reminiscent, variously, of New Order and Pet Shop Boys), this is most uptempo song in the collection; Bowie was also meant to contribute but declined - he couldn't think, apparently, of anything to add. “How the hell did I get here so soon?” marvels Scarlett, aged 24.

10. “No One Knows I’m Gone”
(Alice, 2002)
This could sit on The Cure’s Disintegration album; it has the lush atmospherics of “Prayers For Rain” or “Same Deep Water As You”. A stately accompaniment of keyboards, Velvets-y guitar, sleigh bells (there’s a lot of sleigh bells on this record) and weirdly distorted drums.

11. “Who Are You?”
(Bone Machine, 1992)
Features drum beats half-inched from Roxy Music’s “Angel Eyes”. There’s something about the sepulchral keyboards here and slow bass riffs at the end that inevitably brings to mind Joy Division. Elegiac, which is always a good way to end a record.

Anywhere I Lay My Head is released by Rhino on May 20.

Eric W.H. Taft · 14 Aug 2006

Linda wrote:

“[TV On The Radio’s] David Sitek, the producer

Oh wow, I didn't know he was involved in this. Well damn, now I'm interested. I expected nothing but train wreck from this project, but maybe, just maybe, I'll be wrong.

Pip · **Joined:** 16 Aug 2004 **Posts:** 2921

I want to hear it before I buy it, but I really want to hear it now.

72stones · **Joined:** 12 Jul 2006 **Posts:** 2109

I bet promo posters for this album are going to be big collector's items.

Linda · **Posted:** Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:12 pm

Bump ~ added cover art to the first post.

[2008-05-20] Scarlett Johansson "Anywhere I Lay My Head" Tom Waits covers album (guest: Da

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