Sugar Ladykiller Crush Blood loss Nobody Wins Honey Magnolia Etta James Neptune Watson See You on the Other Side My ultimate 10-song Fallon album (in tracklist order, non TGA)
This is super close to mine. I'd swap "Crush" for "Behold the Hurricane" and "See You on the Other Side" for "Open All Night." Might try to find room for "Cherry Blossoms" too. But otherwise.
Blood Loss may be the firmest must-have song I have on any Brian Fallon playlist. That song is locked in at #1 for me.
"Steve McQueen" is a good song, I just think "Low Love" is a much, much, much better one. I never came around on the Painkillers version of "Long Drives". The more time went on the more I just went back to the MATZ arrangement of it.
I like the MATZ version better too, but if we're putting theoretical Butch-produced versions of "Low Love" and "Georgia" on there, I think we can put the Molly "Long Drives" on there. I have a soft spot for "Steve McQueen" after seeing it live on the Painkillers tour. There was a big sing-along during that one that made it sound a lot more epic than it is on the album.
MATZ version of Long Drives is so, so good. I don't mind the Painkiller's version, however, I enjoy the MATZ version much more. MATZ version of Long Drives (produced by Butch) with Georgia produced by Butch would certainly be top tier level tracks.
If Georgia was given a proper big studio recording, it would be a top 5 BF song for me. Not that I think the recording is bad or anything, but that chorus is HUGE and I'd love if it had been a proper song on Painkillers. As it stands it's still one of my favorite BF/Gaslight B-sides.
I drove to Vermont to see him a couple years ago and he played Georgia at that show. It sounded great but unfortunately I think I was the only person who knew it. I definitely agree with you, it had a lot of potential.
I think it's so odd that they didn't record "Georgia" for Painkillers - aside from it just being an awesome song, Butch Walker is a Georgia native! The recording of it on the Georgia EP is okay, but I don't think it quite lives up to the powerful potential the song has. I don't know why my brain was perfectly fine making up a bunch of other weird hypotheticals but stopped short of BF & BW doing the MATZ arrangement of "Long Drives" in the studio. Just as songs, I think (the MATZ arrangement of) "Long Drives" is better than "Red Lights".
I don't cut "Steve McQueen" cuz it's a bad song - I was trying to work within the 12-song framework and I just like "Low Love" more. It's a great song. I love 11 out of 12 tracks on Painkillers. The only one I don't love is the album version of "Long Drives", and I don't dislike it, it's still a good song. I just wouldn't say I love it. I like it alright. I also love the 3 songs on the Georgia EP and the reworked "The Blues, Mary". I don't care for his cover of "Digging in the Dirt", but out of that entire era, that's 15 songs that I love and one song that I just like. Or I screwed up my math haha. That's pretty awesome.
I haven't been super shy about this but I'm not sure if I've said it in this thread. I had cancer not so long ago (Totally fine, not dying, all good!) But yeah, it was a tough few months. I was sick, I didn't feel right, I couldn't taste things, I slept too much etc...but one day I was in the shower and blood loss was home and I was singing along and I just decided "fuck it" and tried to hit that chorus like Brian. I can't. No one can. Chills. But it felt so normal to be singing along to Gaslight/Brian and it was the first time in a while I felt like myself and the lines "i'll tell you when it's over, i'll tell you when you can leave....etc" hit me so hard. It was a wild moment for me and now i'm stuck with this song forever lol.