Wilco Covers "Broken Arrow" on YouTube - UPDATED

UPDATE: 2/12 - This is a more complete version.

Wilco cover Neil Young's "Broken Arrow" - Feb 9, 2010 Schnitzer Hall, Portland, OR

One of the many highlights of the MusiCares Person Of The Year honoring Neil Young was Wilco covering "Broken Arrow".

"Broken Arrow" is undoubtedly Neil Young's finest studio production -- a masterpiece and epic collage arranged by producer Jack Nitzsche that is on par with anything on The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band" seminal album.

The complexly and intricately constructed audio montage mixes effects and Young's guitar and vocals with a technique what is now commonly known as "sampling". But back in the dark ages of the 1960's audio recording equipment, it was a landmark achievement which took dozens of hours to produce -- an unheard of practice for a single track.

Rarely has the song been covered -- much less performed live -- because of its complexity and technical dexterity requirements.

While this is a truncated clip, The clip does show that Wilco has done "Broken Arrow" proud. (Above clip is missing beginning, this version has more of beginning but is shorter and misses end.)

(Thanks jon & Keith & Purple Words on a Grey Background!!)

From Wilco Talk Football at Montana Gig - Spinner University of Montana's Adams Center, 2/7/10:

"They also dusted off the 'Mermaid Ave Vol. II' Woody Guthrie track 'Remember the Mountain Bed.' 'We played that song because of your freaking mountains!' Tweedy said, then kicked off an eight-song encore with a majestic cover of Buffalo Springfield's 'Broken Arrow,' complete with the 'Mr. Soul' intro and 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' calliope sound. It's a version that they first unveiled at the MusiCares tribute to Neil Young. Heard through Wilco's sonic prism, the song sounds even more like it could have been on 'Sgt. Pepper' or 'Pet Sounds.'

'Yeah, you can see the tie-in between Neil Young and Pet Sounds,' says Kotche. 'Everything that was happening [in 1967], you can see he was kind of in that same head space. Our whole angle with learning that was to do it as exact as possible. The intros, the little interludes, the ending tag -- I'm even doing the same fills. It's fun to play -- and challenging.'"

Here's Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on Neil Young's influence:

"He's right up there in terms of a constant in my musical life as an influence and as a mentor. He's kind of just a force of nature. And I take him for granted sometimes like I take the sun for granted ... I'm really happy the sun comes up every day and I'm happy Neil Young keeps making records."

More on Wilco at MusiCares and Neil Young's influence on Wilco.

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