A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
My record collection
[296] Various artists - Sing Me to Sleep / Cinnamon Girl
American Laundromat is a label that pretty much specialises in tribute albums and this is was the second one that Dean & Britta contributed to, the first being the tribute to The Cure Just Like Heaven that I wrote about quite early in the series.
This album was announced in September 2009, with early pre-orders getting a 7” single, badges, and a poster as well as the CD. The tracklist only got announced in January 2010, and the CD didn’t get released until May.
Sing Me to Sleep is a compilation of “Indie Lullabies”, most rather sweet, some forgettable, and a couple just annoying. The accompanying 7” had a remix of Tanya Donelly’s contribution, an album track, and a rather dull Sigur Ros soundscape - I could probably have lived without it.
Dean & Britta’s track was written by Jack Early and is a short and sweet song called Making Me Smile… but I don’t think it’s a cover. I knew nothing of Jack Early then, and very little more now but there is a Wikipedia page and there is a playlist on Soundcloud called Jack Early’s Greatest Hits which contains Making Me Smile with the description “Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham recorded this one for me” which suggests that this was the original version.
The playlist also has a version of It Don’t Rain in Beverly Hills that I think Dean and Britta played on, and of course later covered for use in 13 Most Beautiful. There’s also a song called Sparrow Song which is all Britta - “Britta Phillips was able to take this song I hummed to her and turn it into something really pretty. Well, that’s Britta for you”.
I found one of the (apparently) two badges, I vaguely remember the poster being stuck up in my study back in London but no idea where it is now, possibly recycled, or it may be in one of my many poster tubes.
Britta did contribute a song to another American Laundromat tribute album - she did a lovely cover of I Am a Child for Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young and since it doesn’t fit the criteria to get a post in this series I guess I’ll bolt it on here! Cinnamon Girl was a 2xCD collection of covers and is a vastly superior album, perhaps because it was a Neil Young tribute so the source material was consistently better than that picked for Sing Me to Sleep.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/070
- Artist: Various artists
- Title: Sing Me to Sleep: Indie Lullabies
- Notes: Charity tribute CD with 7” single
- Packaging: tri-fold card sleeve
- Format: CD/7”
- Bought direct from American Laudromat for $25 + postage
- Buy ‘Sing Me to Sleep’ on Bandcamp
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/035
- Artist: Various artists
- Title: Cinnamon Girl: Women Artists Cover Neil Young
- Packaging: Jewel case
- Format: 2xCD
- Buy ‘Cinnamon Girl’ on Bandcamp