[music] JOEL R.L. PHELPS AND THE DOWNER TRIO - "Apology Accepted"

(Download it from 12XU Records here.)

The best thing about apologiesaccepted.com (aside from a Swede using the interjection "aight", which was pretty great) is that every time I see a pointer to it, I begin humming this wonderful cover of a Go-Betweens song. I had thought nothing could make it more affecting, but while looking around the net just now, I learned that the EP it was recorded for (Inland Empires) was dedicated to his sister, who had recently committed suicide with an overdose of heroin. The song was never as hopeful as its title looked-- the lyric is "I don't know how long / I can wait to see if my / Apology's accepted"-- but addressed to someone who can't ever forgive him it's cripplingly sad.

If you're a Go-Betweens purist and not interested in personal drama, I'll instead point out that lyrics which were a touch aloof when Robert Forster wrote them ("I used to say dumb things" or "I said, that's ridiculous / There's only one thing that precious") become emotional lodestones as sung by Phelps, who is not normally this self-possessed when heartbroken and so seems to be holding back out of something grimmer and deeper than habit.