• News

• All

Apr 09, 2020 By Lily Guthrie Wilco

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco has covered John Prine’s seemingly irreverent tune “Please Don’t Bury Me” in an Instagram Live video. This past Tuesday, April 7, Prine, a Grammy Award-winning folk music composer and performer, died at age 73 of complications from COVID-19. Watch the video of the cover below.

When he was first hospitalized weeks before, other famous musicians who are fans of Prine’s work began sharing covers of the Americana star’s songs. Since the start of quarantine, Tweedy has been doing the Tweedy Show, where he plays live musical sets broadcast on Instagram Live each evening. “Please Don’t Bury Me” appeared on Prine’s 1973 record Sweet Revenge. In the song, Prine pokes fun at the solemnity of death, making it appear more humorous than grave.

Partially playful but also heartbreaking, Tweedy’s sons sang the chorus with him: “Please don’t bury me/Down in that cold, cold ground/No, I’d rather have ’em cut me up/And pass me all around.”

Read our tribute to Prine.

In our My Favorite Album print issue we interviewed actor/musician Chris Sullivan (This Is Us) about John Prine’s self-titled debut. Read the article here.

Tweedy recently collaborated with Mavis Staples on the new song “All In It Together” and also performed his own song “Evergreen” with his sons from his bathroom for Jimmy Kimmel Live!. It was from Tweedy’s 2019 solo album WARMER.

Wilco also put out a new album, Ode to Joy, last year via the band’s own dBpm label.

Read our interview with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy on Ode to Joy.

We previously posted our review of Ode to Joy and you can read that here.

Plus read our 2015 joint interview between Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Australian singer/songwriter/guitarist Courtney Barnett, from our Best of 2015 issue.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.