Released: 2000
Tracks: I Was Not Ready For You; Lonely Man; Friends and Family; Joe; Live in Japan; We’ll Be Right Back; I Will; Apple Pie; Backwards Deb; Ankle Bracelet; Dancing; Lhai Sal; Pretty Enough For Girls; Only Mondays; Kedgeree
Best track: maybe Lonely Man, maybe Backwards Deb/Ankle Bracelet, maybe Kedgeree…
Track to skip: none
Dancing With Myself is the bonus disc from the limited edition of Dancing. This is only available at
Mike’s website. This is a very interesting disc as it not only gives skeletal versions of the Dancing songs, but also a glimpse of how the songs evolved. DWM is all ‘live and acoustic’ recorded at the Baked Potato in Hollywood in May of 2000. The first 4 songs are Mike solo on piano, the next 7 just Mike and his guitar and finally the last 4 are with the full band, although still acoustic. Let’s see, of the 15 songs on here, 3 are not on Dancing. The tag team of I Will & Apple Pie (the comedy numbers) were previously found on Boil That Dust Speck and Hat respectively, while Lonely Man gets its debut here. Lonely Man was planned for Dancing, but wasn’t included, probably for time reasons (Dancing clocks in at just under 80 minutes). Lonely Man is a great song and I can’t wait until we finally get the studio version.
Hearing these songs in their basic form you really understand how cool they are. Even in a stripped down version, there’s still so much going on within the songs. Plus, he’s singing while playing them, and they’re not exactly simple songs. The crowd on this is extremely responsive and clearly had a great time. The crowd singing on Live in Japan & I Will is wonderful and a lot of fun. I like the full band tracks, esp. Kedgeree. Mostly though, I prefer the solo stuff. There’s the intimacy of them, but also how great they sound in their bare form. I really see this as being essential and the perfect companion to Dancing. There are enough differences in the songs to keep everything fresh.
Rating: 90
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