Around this time last month, indie favorites Grandaddy announced they would be re-releasing their defining 2000 album The Sophtware Slump as an expansive 4-LP box set. Part of that box set is The Sophtware Slump ….. On A Wooden Piano, a new version of the album recorded by the group’s Jason Lytle on, yes, a wooden piano.
Today, the reissue officially available… for pre-order. To mark the occasion, the band has shared the new piano version of “The Crystal Lake,” which calms the guitar-driven original down into a more tender ballad.
Lyttle previously said of the song back in 2001, “[It’s about] that age-old story, repeated many times in country music, of the wayward soul who leaves a small town with hopes and dreams of the unknown and winds up full of regret in some horrible little apartment in an unfriendly city.”
When announcing the new version of the album, the band explained its origins, beginning by telling a story about the time Lyttle, before recording sessions began, (attempted to) play the album from front to back on piano. The statement continues, “Early last year, as we discussed if we should commemorate the 20th anniversary, I recalled the memory and wondered what the album would have sounded like before all that wonderful production, before one note had been committed to tape.”
Listen to “The Crystal Lake (Piano Version)” above and compare it to the original version below.
The Sophtware Slump 20th Anniversary Collection is out 11/20 via Dangerbird Records. Pre-order it here.