A coincidence in the stack of CDs I keep in the car allowed me to DJ an odd juxtaposition today, playing Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" from the recently released 30th anniversary box set for Born to Run, followed by a cover of the same tune from Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Tortoise on the new disc, The Brave and the Bold. The first is a majestic masterpiece, the second an odd deconstruction that grounds the song a bit. To quote the Boss, "We got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels." But one could argue that the BPB/Tortoise version isn't necessarily "real," so much as "elemental," stripping away a lot of the bombast that came courtesy of the E Street Band, replacing it with a methodical beat and restrained playing that put the emphasis on the vocals as Will Oldham recounts this tale of wanderlust and escape. Like most good covers, it was entrancing while making me appreciate the original all the more.

I popped the covers disc out and put Born to Run back in, so I can't weigh in on the rest of the album. It's a great concept, however, and it follows two other discs on the Overcoat Records label that find two like-minded artists collaborating on a solid batch of songs. The first, Iron & Wine and Calexico's In the Reins, is the best known and most successful, but the second, Richard Buckner and Jon Langford's Sir Dark Invader vs. the Fanglord is also quite good, a mix that tempers Langford's oddity at the same time it gives Buckner's melancholia a needed kick in the pants. Here's hoping for more such pairings in Overcoat's future.

The Born to Run reissue was a great acquisition. The disc sounds great -- is this the start of an all-out remastering project on Springsteen's back catalog? -- and the extras in the form of 2 DVDs, are whetting my appetite. I'm most excited to play the live show, "Hammersmith Odeon, London '75," which is also coming soon as a 2-CD set. It's amazing to hear the energy crackling off these tracks 30 years later, and it makes me wonder how well the best music of today will bear up three decades hence.