Robert Forster - 2541
[purchase]
When Husker Du broke up at the end of 1987 it was drummer Grant Hart who released the first solo recording, an EP named "2541". The following line pretty much sums things up:
"Now everything is over /Everything is done/Everything is in boxes/ at 2541"
A little googling identifies 2541 as the street address of the old Husker Du office and practice space, but Grant Hart told Spin Magazine that, coincidentally, it was also the number on a house he shared with a lover.
"I wrote the song while waiting for the truck to move me out of this apartment where me and this person had just split up. And there were so many parallels with the dissolvement of (Husker Du)'s office and our being a band."
Must have been some place: "Billy put down the money and I picked up the keys/We had to keep the stove on all night long so the mice wouldn't freeze".
As you've probably already noticed, I'm not offering Grant Hart's version . (You can hear it here.) I have a soft spot for a cover version by The Go-Betweens' Robert Forster. It's from an album of mostly obscure covers called I Had A New York Girlfriend.
