The Black Lips – “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (Waylon Jennings/Willie Nelson Cover)
Outlaw-country gods and longtime buddies Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson recorded a veritable shit-ton of songs together, but their most famous is probably the lightweight 1975 shuffle “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.” Lately, Willie Nelson has been flipping the chorus around in concert, changing it to “Mammas Don’t Let Your Cowboys Grow Up To Be Babies.” Meanwhile, the antic beer-spitting garage-punks in the Black Lips could be described as, simultaneously, both cowboys and babies, and they would probably confuse the shit out of Waylon and Willie. For a Record Store Day split 7″ with Icky Blossoms, the Black Lips have recorded their own amateurish, twanged-out, vaguely jokey cover of “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” and you can listen to it here, via Pitchfork. (Meanwhile, you can also stream Icky Blossoms’ side, a cover of Siouxsie And The Banshees’ “Arabian Knights,” here.)