High Five 5 Alkaline Trio songs we’d like to see the band play acoustically

Believe it or not, Alkaline Trio is in its 15th year of existence. Over that time, the seminal Chicago punk band has sparred with several different labels, gone through four drummers, and put out seven records worth of dark, boozy pop punk. Not too shabby for a bunch of dudes from the north suburbs.

Yesterday, July 12, the band released its eighth full length, Damnesia. Rather than writing a whole new album, the Trio decided to reflect inward, laying out 12 classics, two new tracks, and one Violent Femmes cover, all in unplugged format. The track list was a safe list of fan favorites, essentially the highlights of the near two-decade career of the band.

While the band did not really pick a stinker for the album (staples like “Private Eye,” “Nose Over Tail,” and “Radio” all get stripped down), it did overlook some of its best songs. And that’s not to call one song better than the other; it’s simply that the content of some are more suited to acoustic treatment.

Here are five songs The A.V. Club wishes got the Damnesia treatment.

“San Francisco” from Goddamnit
Even before Matt Skiba moved from Chicago to the Bay Area in 2001, San Francisco was cemented in Trio mythology by this 1998 song. As with many of the band’s songs, this one centers on a man drinking himself silly on a flight between the two cities as he laments a recent break-up. Ambivalent about both returning to home and to his former lover, he drinks heavily on the flight to make it seem longer, therefore, in classic Skiba drunk-logic, giving him more time to think. Given the lyrical content, Matt Skiba would have written great country songs. Throw a little pedal steel into “San Francisco,” and it wouldn’t sound out of place on a Ryan Adams album.

“As You Were” from Goddamnit
Goddamnit is easily the most punk album that the band put out, and “As You Were” is one of its punker songs. Moving at breakneck speed and bending similes like a good rapper, this track also revels in the alarmist lovesickness that made Alkaline Trio so relatable. Acoustically, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine “As You Were” becoming a rabble-rousing bar-rock song, in the same vein as Billy Bragg or even early Against Me!

“My Friend Peter” from Alkaline Trio
Sadly, not one single song made the cut from the 2000 self-titled compilation, which happens to feature one the best blasts of punk the band has put out. Unlike many Trio songs, however, this one does not prominently feature drugs or alcohol as medication. Skiba is beyond that in this song, seeking solace from a dissolved relationship from his good buddy Peter. While it’s always hard to strip down skate punk, “My Friend Peter” could easily flourish under the same treatment given to “Private Eye” on the proper album.

“Crawl” from From Here To Infirmary
If Skiba is the king of lovesickness, then Dan Andriano is the god he answers to. While his songs never outnumber his guitar-playing cohort’s on an album, his are always the most heartbreaking and darkest. “Crawl,” the last song on 2001’s From Here To Infirmary, begins its day (reluctantly, at that) on drugs, and continues to compare a burned out romance to drinking too much. This romance is different, as Andriano says he’s “never had a drink that I didn’t like.” Drugs, drinking, and hopeless romanticism—Andriano completes the Trio checklist on this one, whose strained vocals beg for the unplugged treatment.

“All On Black” from Good Mourning
One of the darkest periods of Alkaline Trio history (the suits-on-stage era, it’s been coined), “All On Black” is an amalgamation of haunting imagery. Everything is black, killers lurk outside doors, and organ removal fits into the equation somewhere. While it’s backed with the same overdriven guitars and intricate drumming, it works on the same level as a solid pop song, one that could have dominated the charts were it not for the whole gothic imagery thing. Acoustic, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Johnny Depp idly playing it in a Tim Burton film.