Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello “Tommy’s Coming Home” with Mikey Erg

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This week on Repeater, we talk with drummer, guitarist, and vocalist Mikey Erg (The Chris Gethard Show, Worriers, Early Riser The Ergs!, 100 Other Bands) about “Tommy’s Coming Home” by unbelievable dream team Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello. This episode, we dive into how this song got Mikey through this past year and how the song’s harmonies and subject matter become malleable to fit any mood. Pat, Evan, and Mikey delve into the instant nostalgia the song manages to create and how it colored 2018, a year, that for Mikey, included the tremendous professional/personal landmark of recording his next album at Abbey Road.

We start our discussion with everyone’s current musical obsessions from “Skeleton” by Mourn, to “Cuz I Love You” by Lizzo, and Mikey takes us into an in-depth and gorgeously nerdy dive into audio history with a discussion of 5.1 and quadrophonic albums. We also tackle a few more 2018 highlights and low lights such as the Winter Olympics and government shutdowns.

Mikey tells us about how “Tommy’s Coming Home” comes from a lifetime of loving The Beatles and record collecting. We talk about both the stripped down demo and the highly produced version, and the sheer excitement of listening to a previously unreleased song for the first time from giants like Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello.

This is an episode for people who’s immense musical passion started from childhood. Mikey talks buying records with his Mom at two years old, and getting CDs from his Dad, a professional cover band musician. Plus, Mikey plays us two songs to end the episode!