The opening guitar riff of "Utopia" immediately sets the tune up for pictures of wide open spaces. It's real easy to get lost in the story and forget that you're being taken for a ride. john Arthur martinez gets to deliver a clever piece of writing from John Greenberg (Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros) & Bill Murray, too, with the lines, "For fifteen battered years we lived out of a pickup truck. When she told me to make my bed, I'd just put the tailgate up." I love that! If you like this acoustic version, by all means pick up the album track---there are so many beautiful layers to it...dobro, organ, fiddle, and electric guitar all perfectly set in their proper tone and space.
If you look closely at JAM's guitar in this video, you'll see Emmylou Harris' signature just southwest of the bridge. The guitar lives at The Mansion on O Street, as a memory from Emmylou's performance there, and they asked JAM to play it for our session, and his performance later that evening. The guitar's got stories, too...
-Aaron
