Title Fight: "No Man's Land"

Photo titled "Still Life with Rooster" by Louis Ducos Du Hauron, c. 1969

Man, my credibility is going to take a hit on this one. It's not really fair - I'm putting a favorite song from an outtakes collection by a currently-somewhat-out-of-favor indie musician (Sufjan Stevens) up against a non-standout-track from a classic album (The Madcap Laughs) by an untouchable alien rock genius (Syd Barrett). I'm tempted to cheat and give Barrett the win here, just because I'm still mad about Stevens' The Age of Adz (more like The Age of Nadz - amiright?)

But let's weigh this out. Sufjan Stevens' "No Man's Land" is really a pretty good song, even though it is actually an outtake from his Illinois record (it was included in The Avalanche collection). The organ and woodwind arrangement in the intro grabs me right away, and the lyric starts with a cute Woody Guthrie reference. But my great affection for this track is all about the first "I'm counting it out - I'm counting it out" section, which then leads straight into a great handclap interlude. Stevens does lose some points for subject matter - the song is full of Illinois geographic references, but there is no real "no man's land" in modern-day Illinois, so I don't really know what he's on about.

On the other hand, "No Man's Land" is an apropos descriptor for a lot of aspects of Syd Barrett, one of the definitive rock outsiders. I love The Madcap Laughs, but the track "No Man's Land" never really stood out to me - I tend to think of it as, "The one before 'Dark Globe'". It's got quite a good vocal from Barrett, but the fuzzy guitar makes the song seem more amorphous than it actually is (and most of Barrett's solo compositions are pretty amorphous to begin with). And the guitar solo in this one doesn't really do anything for me, even though it ends with some great scat-singing/muttering from Barrett.

Ugh - I just remembered that the Sufjan Stevens "No Man's Land" was used over the closing credits to Little Miss Sunshine, another work that has been subject to some backlash in the last couple years. What can I do, though? It's a better song, credibility be damned.

Winner: SUFJAN STEVENS

"No Man's Land" by Sufjan Stevens

"No Man's Land" by Syd Barrett