Little Honda [EP]

Yo La Tengo

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 10, 1998)
• Original Release Date: March 10, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: EP
• Label: Matador Records
• ASIN: B00000649R
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #182,211 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Little Honda

2. Be Thankful for What You Got

3. No Return

4. Black Hole

5. How Much I've Lied

6. By the Time It Gets Dark

7. Little Honda

8. We Are The Champions

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YLT is aspiring to be a best kept secret cover band!, June 17, 2000

By	Stefan (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

If you love Yo La Tengo then undoubtedly you have seen them perform live, and every show is a treat to see what cover song they'll play in the encore...Little Honda is a gem of these, with the best cover of "Be Thankful For What You've Got" I have ever heard. My other favorite track on this disc is "How Much I've Lied" which has some of the most brilliant true to life lyrics Ira's ever breathed...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Covers EP., October 8, 2008

By	Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

One of several singles from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, "Little Honda" is an EP of cover songs-- six studio performances and two unlisted live takes.

The title track, originally from the Beach Boys, is one of the great covers by Yo La Tengo, sticking to the original attitude of the piece without embracing its sound-- the band drives the piece off a distorted guitar riff framing a confident and attitude-drenched vocal from guitarist Ira Kaplan. It's presented in both the album cut and a live take. The latter is lacking a bit, the vocal sounds a bit more assertive and misses some of the swagger the studio cut presented.

The rest of the covers are kind of a mixed bag-- William DeVaughn's "Be Thankful For What You Got" finds the band slinking into an r&b groove with a laid back, two (and sometimes three) part vocal harmony, but largely, it feels a bit too detached for me to really enjoy it. Both the Kinks' "No Return" and the Urinals' "Black Hole" get '60s pop with jangly guitar readings that don't do it for me. The band turns torwards their folky/country side for covers of Gram Parson's "How Much I've Lied" and Sandy Denny's "By the Time it Gets Dark". Both are pretty good renditions, but by and large, I never loved Yo La Tengo's folk stuff, although "By the Time It Gets Dark" is absolutely fantastic, pretty stuff with a nice two part vocal. The record closes with a fairly goofy cover of Queen's "We Are the Champions", there's not a whole lot to say about it other than that.

The EP is fun, but honestly, Yo La Tengo's done a lot better covers than the stuff on this record. Only diehard fans need this one, everyone else can skip it.

4.0 out of 5 stars one of their best jokes, June 4, 2009

By	gbear "al" (St Paul, MN) - See all my reviews

I've always loved that cover of Little Honda, although if you buy the Hearts Beating as One LP you'll get a full album's worth of great songs.

Lou Reed had a thing about songs with the line "It's alright" or "It was all right" (Five year old Jenny in 'Rock and Roll'). Someone in Yo La Tengo tuned in to the fact that riding the Honda was mucho-alright too. (the word is in the song Little Honda four times every chorus). Put two and two together, and you come up with one of the best cover songs from that era. Velvet grunge with a Lou Reed vocal and, of course, it's alright. Cool song.