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Reason To Believe – The Songs of Tim Hardin
CD / Download
Full Time Hobby / Rough Trade
01.02.2013
Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep – The Phoenix Foundation
Reason To Believe – The Sand Band
Red Balloon – Mark Lanegan
Part Of The Wind – Diagrams
It’s Hard To Believe In Love For Long – The Magnetic North
How Can We Hang On To A Dream? – Alela Diane
Misty Roses – Snorri Helgason
If I Knew – Sarabeth Tucek
It’ll Never Happen Again – Okkervil River
If I Were A Carpenter – Smoke Fairies
Shiloh Town – Gavin Clark
Eulogy For Lenny Bruce – Hannah Peel
I Can’t Slow Down – Pinkunoizu
Album-Artwork von Miles Johnson bei Third Man Records (Jack White etc.)
Reason To Believe: The Songs of Tim Hardin
Artist Quotes
Sam Scott, The Phoenix Foundation
I must admit, I came toTim Hardin fairly late in the piece. I guess you grow up with Dylan and that can
lead you to explore the other Greenwich folksters of that era, Karen Dalton, Fred Neil etc. But there is
something much more difficult about Tim Hardin, he takes a bit of getting used to but 'Red Balloon' was
track that turned me into a fan. 'If I Were A Carpenter' and his syrupy voice could be a misleading
introduction to an artist who can lyrically pull the rug from under your feat with some really dark shit
(see 'The Lady Came From Baltimore') and can also be melodically obtuse. We ended up choosing 'Don't
Make Promises', which while still slightly depressing, is nonetheless a jaunty tune. The original
reminded me of The Lovin' Spoonful (I just realised it's that same producer!) but Luke had less earthly
intentions for the arrangement than mid '60s folk rock. Instead we gave it a cosmic-space-churchgospel-tripper treatment.
Snorri Helgason
My father is a folk musician and I'm pretty sure I first heard Tim Hardin through him as a kid. But I don't
think I really started listening to him until I was in my early twenties. I kept hearing his name
everywhere. All kinds of people were and citing him as an influence in interviews and talking about him
articles about the 60's folk scene and stuff like that so he was always at the back of my mind. Then I
remember hearing "Reason To Believe" on the radio and I was hooked. I went straight to the record
store(as you did in those days) ang bought his first album and devoured it. "Misty Roses" is one of my
favourite Hardin songs and it has a chord movement that is fun to play around with so that is why we
chose to cover it.
Pinkunoizu
This song embodies the very fabric of the blues mythology. Tim Harding evokes the spirit of the
crossroads as a purgatory of the vast American landscape, most likely best known from Robert Johnson’s
work. Harding’s strumming is brilliantly fierce and energetic on his recording. We thought it would be
interesting to cover this song, because of the purity it inhabits, and because the desert as a trope holds
the opportunities of the clean sheet. Covering someone else’s material is, for us, mostly exciting if one
can make something new of it. Something that’s not just a lesser version of the already existing. We
tried to do this by obviously slowing down what can’t be slowed down, and leaving it in just one key
evading the blues chord progression. Nils Gröndahl (of Under Byen) wrote and performed the string
arrangement, which adds a dramatic tension corresponding nicely with the lyrics. The strings work as a
sort of parallel narrative that threatens with fatal assassination, just like the mysterious plane in the
crossroad scene of Hitchcock’s North By Northwest
The Sand Band
I love his songs because he gives a piece of himself away with each one. There are lessons in there
amongst the poetry. He's honest and you know he's lived each line.
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Mark Lanegan
I've always been haunted by the devastating voice and beautiful songs of Tim Hardin. I can't imagine
anyone hearing him and not feeling the same.
Sarabeth Tucek
‘If I Knew’ - I have always been drawn to this particular track. It is a deeply interior song that had
initially seemed incomplete in structure but always fully complete in its emotion and intent... the
struggle for completion, the longing to become, the faltering hope. The structure actually serves the
lyrics perfectly. A song striving to be...a man striving to become. A plea to find one's place. A human
condition song. A song for everyone.
Smoke Fairies
We are really glad to a part of this unique project. Tim Hardin has written so many classic songs, and we
thought it would be interesting to have a go at a song that had already been covered by many artists
and try to give it a different feel. There is a sadness and an insecurity to the song; questioning the love
of someone close and hoping they are going to remain close to you through everything, whether you are
rich or poor. We took it in a heavier direction to give it a dark and possessive feel. Lyrically the song is
quite strange to sing from a modern day perspective but the female led vocals put an interesting spin on
the otherwise quite domineering themes found in lines like "carrying the pots I've made, following
behind me". We found ourselves picking the lyrical content quite loosely to explore the song from a
different angle.
Gavin Clark
Tim Hardin is an unsung hero of his generation, sometimes it takes people time to catch up with his
greatness. The beauty and heart felt emotion of Shiloh Town continually moves me, it becomes a step
into my own consciousness and healing to my soul. It's a privilege to be asked and despite the weight of
recording the track it's an honour to be involved
Alela Diane
I first came across the music of Tim Hardin when I'd moved back to my hometown after a failed stint at
city life. My room mate at the time owned a little record store in town, and showed me "The Blues Run
the Game." I recall immediately figuring out how to play the song, and would do a proper cover of the
song some five years later as a part of a collaborative project I leant my voice to called Headless
Heroes. When I had the opportunity to cover another of his songs for this collection, I was glad to again
dig around in his repertoire and find another gem to sing. Not a hard task to do, when every song offers
an honest & beautiful sadness.
Diagrams
I'm really only discovering Tim Hardin now after years of hearing friends and musicians talk about him
and the influence his music has had on them. Having heard so many of my heros speak about him I'm
sure his music must have influenced mine by that lovely process of creative osmosis whereby ideas filter
through from one musician to the next. I promise to make an effort to listen properly from here on in. It
seems like there are lots of gems to be discovered.
It was really nice to be asked to contribute to this record and to be given the opportunity to listen to
some great music in the process.
Part of the Wind struck me as a song I could get away with singing in my own way which was why I
chose to record it and Mark Brydon's production gives our version a bit of a different feel to the original
that was fun to play around with. I hope Tim wouldn't mind the changes too much.
I hope people enjoy the record. It's been fun to be involved.
Okkervil River
I still remember and treasure the exact moment I was listening to Tim Hardin’s song “Black Sheep Boy”
and had the idea to make an album based around it and somewhat tangentially based around my
impressions of Hardin. It resulted in my favorite Okkervil River album up until that point, so Tim Hardin
has always been a treasured artistic totem for me. At the time I was writing Black Sheep Boy the album,
he became one of those artists you become such a super-fan of that you feel like you’ve begun to know
them personally, like they’re hovering over your shoulder, like they’re your best friend. None of this was
true, of course, but it crazily felt true to me at the time. Of course, you move on and you discover new
artists to become obsessed with, and you even stop listening to the old ones for awhile, but you still
know them and they still know you. They’re like your high school girlfriend who knows all your secrets.
I’ll stop talking in the second person. I was sitting on my bed with this girl and it was this unspoken
thing that we both knew our relationship wasn’t going to last, that in fact it was going to be totally over
really soon. This was after I’d recorded Black Sheep Boy, and I put on “It’ll Never Happen Again” and
told her this was the song I kind of wished I’d covered instead. I just put the song on because I liked it,
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but as we sat there and listened to Hardin’s sad, perfect piano-driven version, it started to fill the room
like this sad, salty fog. I immediately felt bad I’d made her listen to the song, and after it was over she
said, “Well, now I feel really, really depressed.” Before that moment, the song always made me feel
warm, in the way that Hardin’s saddest songs always had some soft comforting inner glow, but, after
that listening, the song was colored and it felt burdened and I didn’t like to listen to it anymore. When I
was asked to contribute to this album though, I decided to cover it, out of allegiance to the past version
of me who existed in the instant I put the song on for that girl, the me who was warmed and lulled and
comforted by it.
Hannah Peel
Tim Hardin was a friend of Lenny Bruce, 'Lenny's Song' was written as a mark of sadness and anger over
the outspoken comedian's death. Renowned for his dangerous and critical form of comedy which
integrated politics, religion, and sex
The Magnetic North
Throughout Tim Hardin's melodies and lyrics there is a weight of emotion and a rich seam of melancholy
which endures the test time and makes them just as relevant today as when he wrote them, if not more
so
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