Every so often I want to give you something I can’t send you in the mail. Here’s some music.
Happy new year.

Malvina Reynolds’ song “I Don’t Mind Failing” came out in 1967 on Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth (Columbia). In The Muse of Parker Street, Reynolds writes that “Reverend Stephen Fritchman of the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles gave one of his great sermons, ‘The Fine Art of Failing,’ in January of 1964. I did what I could to spread the message in this song. The ideas are Reverend Fritchman’s, the wording is mine. For those that are put out by cuss-words, I’m sorry about the phrase in this, but that is the way the song wanted to be.” A broadside from Sing Out! (1965) is available here.

Here, musician Michael Edminster (Tacoma, WA, U.S.), who records as Olympia Trout Patrol, resets Reynolds’ song as a punk-folk-electronic hymn to joyful refusal and commitment for our times.

click here to download

“I Don’t Mind Failing”, performed, recorded,
and produced by Michael Edminster.
Available to download for free
from the Internet Archive.