Here is one of the seminal underground records of the late 1960s: The band is Pearls Before Swine, and the album is called One Nation Underground.
Although the album has been reissued on a number of occasions, those editions always got it wrong, using bad mixes or adding reverb to simulate stereo from the original mono record. But to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the proper mono mix has been reissued, and I'm so glad I can properly turn you on to a classic you might not know about (and hopefully will love as much as I do). It mixes folk music with exotic instrumentation, and captures an innocence that I don't think will ever exist again in recorded music.
I recently spoke with Tom Rapp, Pearls Before Swine's singer and songwriter. I started the conversation by playing the album's opening track "Another Time" as he listened on the line from Florida.
Interview Highlights
On writing his their first song "Another Time"
I was thrown out of an Austin-Healey Sprite and the windshield ended up in the top of the tree — I don't know, a half a mile away — and I was just beneath the back tire. I wasn't actually injured. I had, like, a little scrape somewhere. And police came and I was listening to the police report that they were taking us to the station and people were dying all over the place in car accidents and fires and drownings. And I said, 'Oh man, the universe does not care at all.'
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