One Year, 100 Albums: #37 Me First and the Gimme Gimmes "Blow in the Wind"

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Blow in the Wind, 2001

I first heard about Me First and the Gimme Gimmes from my friend Erin. But she had only heard of them as something of a rumor. THEN we were on dinner break from some play we were doing so a bunch of us went to the mall. And that's where I found my first Me First album: Are a Drag which was all showtunes made famous by women. The thing was, I didn't know most of the songs, so I was worried that they did covers AND originals. But, slowly but surely, I tracked down the musicals that each song was from using CDNow (which I believe got absorbed by Amazon) (Wikipedia would have been very helpful back then) and confirmed that they were a 100% cover band.

So then I got their first album Have a Ball (70's covers) and eagerly awaited the release of this, their 3rd album. It's all 60's covers and it very nearly didn't make the list. In fact, if I could (and I could, but it would be a hassle), I would have had two Me First albums here: this one and their "black" album Take a Break because I love them roughly equally and I guess it was just the inclusion of "Oh Girl" and "Mona Lisa" (which never really take off for me) on Take a Break, that caused me to choose this one over that one.

This was the first Me First album I actually ANTICIPATED and let me tell you something: there's few less exciting anticipations than the anticipation of a Me First album. You know it's going to be great and weird and amazing. In fact, I'm anticipating a new one right now!

Their Beatles cover threw me off a little since it wasn't as direct a cover as some of the other songs, but now I love this version almost as much as the original!

Some Me First songs contain references to punk rock songs. "My Favorite Things" starts off like Bad Religion's "Generator", "You've Got a Friend" starts off like "Blitzkrieg Bop", and "On the Road Again" starts off like the Misfits' "Astro Zombies".

This album has references, too. "Elenore" maintains the basic instrumentation of "London Calling" throughout the whole song. But my favorite ref on the album is the one that kicks off the album. I heard this first and THEN the song it's referencing, but "Blowin' In the Wind" references the hidden track on NOFX's Punk in Drublic which contains an outtake of the band trying to get the harmony right on the line "How did the cat get so fat?" from the song "Perfect Government". Which is SO obscure until you know the NOFX album and then it's fantastic.

You should probably just buy all the Me First albums.

I couldn't find any music videos, which doesn't surprise me, so here's three songs. One from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end. (Fun fact: The last song is a cover of a song I featured a couple of posts ago with Carole King!)

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Blowin' in the Wind
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Who Put the Bomp
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

You can buy Blow in the Wind at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes