Jim James has announced a new covers LP and shared its first track, a cover of Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds classic “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.” James recorded the cover over a sample of Isaac Hayes’ “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” itself a cover of the Jimmy Webb song popularized by Glen Campbell. In a press release, James explains that he “ripped apart ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’ and put it back together again as ‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’” while listening to the master tapes for Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul. Check it out below. Also covered on James’ new LP—titled Tribute to 2, and accompanied by a new reissue of George Harrison covers LP Tribute To—are songs by Bob Dylan, Sonny & Cher, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and more. Check out the cover art and tracklist below.
James said in a press release:
‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’ is a song that has spoken to me very deeply from the first time I heard it. So often, many of us just feel like we don’t fit in, like somehow we were dropped into the wrong life at the wrong time. This song has such a beautiful way of resonating with that energy and relating to the pain of life on earth, but also offering hope and comfort in the beautiful sounds of togetherness.
Jim James - Tribute to 2:
01 I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times (by The Beach Boys)
02 Baby Don’t Go (by Sonny & Cher)
03 Wild Honey (by Diane Izzo)
04 Midnight, the Stars and You (by Ray Noble & Al Bowlly)
05 Crying in the Chapel (by The Orioles)
06 Funny How Time Slips Away (by Willie Nelson)
07 Love is the Sweetest Thing (by Ray Noble & Al Bowlly)
08 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (by Bob Dylan)
09 Lucky Man (by Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
10 The World is Falling Down (by Abbey Lincoln)
11 Blue Skies (by Irving Berlin)