It’s been “a hot minute,” as the kids say, since I last wrote an article. (Or used to say? I’m not really sure what the kids say anymore. You know, I’m not sure if they ever said “hot minute” – I may have made the whole thing up. Anyway, I digress.) Since I last touched base with all the New Leaf Journal readers, I’ve been experimenting with releasing more of my home recording sessions, which I first discussed in these pages under The Quarantine Sessions label back in 2020, with fellow Brooklyn-based musician Mark Caserta on streaming platforms. We recently released a a pair of songs and titled the release Tired and Blue, which I present below.
(Mark and I also have a full-length album of ten songs coming out on vinyl next year, but I’ll save that for another article once we have the official release date set.)
Our Recordings: Tired and Blue
Tired and Blue consists of two cover songs. First we covered the 1959 hit Mr. Blue, written by Dewayne Blackwell. You can listen to our rendition of Mr. Blue on YouTube (no cookie).
Victor V. Gurbo - Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Organ Mark Caserta - Lead Guitar, Bass Guitar, Xylophone Michelle Siracusa - Backup Vocals, Piano
Second, we covered the 1990s fan favorite I’m So Tired by the alt-punk post-hardcore band Fugazi. You can also listen to our cover of I’m So Tired on YouTube (no cookie).
Victor V. Gurbo - Vocals, Harmonica Mark Caserta - Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar Michelle Siracusa - Vocals, Piano
Both of our recordings feature Michelle Siracusa as a guest musician, singing harmonies and playing piano with us. Her creative addition brought a wonderful layer to this project. Mark and Michelle had collaborated for many years before the pandemic, and he suggested that we invite Michelle. Keeping with the nature of these tracks, Michelle recorded all of her parts in her home.
After a few days of discussing what to title the two songs together, Mark in a stroke of genius suggested we title it “Tired and Blue.” I have styled the release with a photograph taken by Robert Gurbo, and it was edited to go with Tired and Blue under his supervision. I hope you enjoy both songs and, as always, I’d love to hear your feedback. The songs are available on Spotify and Apple Music as well as YouTube.
I’ll give you a little history of the songs to help you better enjoy them.
About Mr. Blue
Mr. Blue was written by American songwriter Dewayne Blackwell (September 17, 1936 – May 23, 2021) in 1959. Blackwell also wrote I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home in 1982 for David Frizzell and Friends in Low Places for Garth Brooks (a favorite of my good friend and band’s piano player, Jason Laney). Mr. Blue was written for The Fleetwoods, an early American pop band from Olympia, Washington. The band consisted of Gretchen Christopher, Barbara Ellis, and Gary Troxel, and they originally performed under the name “Two Girls and a Guy” but changed their name to “The Fleetwoods” (“Fleetwood” was the first seven-digit telephone exchange in Olympia, Washington) right before they hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with two songs in 1959. The first was Come Softly To Me (written by the band themselves) and the second was Mr. Blue (The Fleetwoods’ Mr. Blue on YouTube).
I discovered Mr. Blue like I have discovered many 20th-century songs – from a recommendation by the great Bob Dylan. I have learned about many great songs through references in Mr. Dylan’s work. However, sometimes he makes it easy and performs a song I had never heard of – as was the case with Mr. Blue. Bob Dylan recently performed with the 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour by Blackbird Presents, which featured an incredible lineup of great musicians, including Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Robert Plant. On June 21st at the Ameris Bank Amphitheater in Alpharetta, Georgia, he surprised fans by performing Mr. Blue for the first time as the fifth song in the set. He kept the song in rotation for the entirety of the tour, playing it a total of twenty-six times. To quote the great Scott Warmuth, who I turn to for all things Bob Dylan: “My suggestion is that if Bob Dylan recommends a record to you, even in such a circuitous manner, it makes sense to listen to that record. To leave this out of the narrative would be doing a disservice to the work.” (Quotation Source: Instagram; Archived)
On Our Cover of Mr. Blue
The song is classic in all the right ways – it’s forthright with its sadness, beautifully simple, and timeless. It’s a perfect snapshot of unrequited love, with a lonely protagonist struggling as he watches his lover fickly return his advances and then drift away. The song seemed to fit into many of the themes I write about and align with many of the songs Mark and I cover, so we got to work. I recorded rhythm guitar, vocals, and organ for the song, and then Mark added accompanying guitar, bass guitar, and xylophone. Michelle Siracusa added piano and accompanying vocals. We made no major deviations from the source material, other than omitting the introductory verses. Unlike many of our home recordings, where we drastically change the songs, our goal here was to stay true to the original feel and tenor of Mr. Blue.
About I’m So Tired
I had never heard of I’m So Tired until Mark brought it to my attention. He is a fan of the band Fugazi, which formed in Washington D.C. in 1986, and consisted of guitarists and vocalists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally, and drummer Brendan Canty. The group was known for their do-it-yourself ethic and contempt for the music industry, and they produced six studio albums during their seventeen years together. I’m So Tired was released on the band’s 1999 album Instrument Soundtrack. It is a moody piano ballad and stands out as a departure from their usual sound. The song is dark and flush with depression, so Mark thought it would be a great addition to our repertoire (Fugazi’s I’m So Tired on YouTube).
On Our Cover of I’m So Tired
This was the first recording Mark and I worked on together where he entirely took the lead on the arrangement. Once I told him I thought I’m So Tired is something I could pull off, he went to work structuring the piece and recording all the instruments. Mark laid down acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, and, as an added bonus, a vintage bike bell I gave him a few weeks earlier. While the bell proved too heavy to use as intended, Mark instantly fell in love with the sound it made. I then added vocals and some harmonica. Afterward, Michelle Siracusa added the accompanying vocals and piano. The song came together swimmingly, and it proved to be a fun complement to Mr. Blue.
Reviews of Tired and Blue
I hope you enjoy our recordings and, as I wrote above, would welcome any and all feedback. Speaking of feedback, I’d like to end the article by sharing some wonderful quotes from reviews Mark and I have received through the music service Groover:
…It isn’t something I’d be drawn to…but it is appealing in a kind of old-fashioned way.
Planetarian
[The song] missed a more commercial potential…
Larsen Blake
…The style is a little too contemporary.
Best New Indie
…the music is quite monotonous in my opinion, and just didn’t excite me.
Brainheart
The melody becomes repetitive and doesn’t evolve, leaving the listener waiting for a moment of depth that never arrives. Lyrically, it leans heavily on well-worn folk clichés about nature, love, and time, without offering any fresh perspective or memorable imagery. It feels more like a collection of familiar phrases than a cohesive, heartfelt narrative. The production is competent but uninspired, with little dynamic variation. The vocals, though sincere, struggle to break free from the monotony of the arrangement, which could have benefited from richer instrumentation or even subtle shifts in tempo to create a more immersive atmosphere.
Kelly Branco for The Sound
