Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats Gets a 30th Anniversary Reissue With 36 Tracks and Long-Lost Cuts

Ween are returning to 12 Golden Country Greats with a 30th anniversary edition that stretches the 1996 album into something far more bloated, archival, and oddly fitting than its original 10-song shape ever suggested. The duo, who built their cult reputation on the scrappy weirdness of Pure Guava and Chocolate and Cheese during the alt-rock boom, made their leap into Nashville with a kind of straight-faced absurdity that still defines the record. They worked with respected session players they called the Shit Creek Boys, brought in Elvis Presley’s old backing singers, the Jordanaires, and then turned the whole setup into a country pastiche with titles like “Piss Up A Rope” and “Help Me Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain.”

At the time, the album landed as a provocation as much as a statement, and the reaction was mostly confusion. Michael Nelson later went so far as to call it Ween’s worst album in a 2012 Stereogum list. But whatever the initial verdict, 12 Golden Country Greats has clearly accumulated enough believers to justify a deep reissue. The band, now inactive, have announced an expanded edition that finally gives the album the track count its title implies, even if only by going well past it. The original release was absurdly named: it contained just 10 songs. This new version will include 36 tracks.

Two previously cut songs, “I’ve Got No Darkside” and “So Long, Jerry,” a Jerry Garcia tribute that sounds sincere enough on paper, are now part of the package after being left off the 1996 album. Alongside them are four-track demos, studio outtakes, rarities, and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Fool To Cry.” Today, Ween shared the previously unreleased, minute-long “Bad Day In Brownsville,” a tiny piece of detour that fits neatly into the record’s long-running tension between craft and nonsense.

The set is arranged across three discs: the remastered original album, a collection of 12 demos, and a third disc of 14 outtakes and demos. The tracklist folds in early versions of album songs like “I Don’t Wanna Leave You On The Farm,” “Piss Up A Rope,” and “Fluffy,” along with deeper cuts and curiosities including “Boston Chicken,” “Good Timing Rhyming Song,” “Sweet Texas Fire,” “Twinkle,” “If You Can’t Look Me In The Eye,” “I’m Gonna Fix Your Ass,” “Spaghetti,” and “Scum Of This Town.”

12 Golden Country Greats (Deluxe Edition) is out 7/31 on Rhino. Pre-order it here.

TRACKLIST:

Disc 1 (original album remastered)
01 “I’m Holding You”
02 “Japanese Cowboy”
03 “Piss Up A Rope”
04 “I Don’t Wanna Leave You On The Farm”
05 “Pretty Girl”
06 “Powder Blue”
07 “Mister Richard Smoker”
08 “Help Me Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain”
09 “You Were The Fool”
10 “Fluffy”

Disc 2 (12 Golden Demos):
01 “I Don’t Wanna Leave You On The Farm” (demo)
02 “Piss Up A Rope” (demo)
03 “Mister Richard Smoker” (demo)
04 “Help Me Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain” (demo)
05 “Pretty Girl” (demo)
06 “Fluffy” (demo)
07 “You Were The Fool” (demo)
08 “Powder Blue” (demo)
09 “I’ve Got No Darkside” (demo)
10 “Maybelle” (demo)
11 “I’m Holding You” (demo)
12 “So Long Jerry” (demo)

Disc 3 (14 Golden Outtakes and Demos):
01 “I’ve Got No Darkside”
02 “Boston Chicken”
03 “Bad Day In Brownsville”
04 “Good Timing Rhyming Song”
05 “Sweet Texas Fire”
06 “Twinkle”
07 “If You Can’t Look Me In The Eye”
08 “I’m Gonna Fix Your Ass”
09 “Fool To Cry”
10 “Spaghetti”
11 “I’ll Miss You”
12 “Maybelle” (Waste Version)
13 “Scum Of This Town”
14 “So Long Jerry”