Thank you to all participants for your nominations and votes, especially during this pre-lim round.  It ends today on a mellow note; you might call it the “Saturday Hangover Edition.”  As always, listen to the tunes here and vote by commenting before 11:59pm on Monday.

Play-in:  You Can Have It All (Yo La Tengo) vs. Stay Awhile (She and Him). Yo La Tengo takes a funky George McCrae song and tenderizes it, while Zooey Deschanel takes a stab at an old Dusty Springfield standard.

Play-in:  I Want You Back (Lake Street Dive) vs. Baby I Need Your Lovin’ (Johnny Rivers).  The battle of Motown covers! Both artists slow things down a bit here, all the better to let the famous music factory’s songwriting shine through. Also, I learned the lyric is “now that I see you in his arms,” not “now that I see you anytime.”

Play-in: Yesterday (Ray Charles) vs. Pursuit of Happiness (Lissie). Yesterday is by some metrics the most covered song of all-time, so it felt appropriate to have a representative, and who better than Ray?  Lissie’s cover of Kid Cudi and MGMT has been loved by all who heard it, according to former music tournament co-chair Guillermo, who should be getting his voters into listening shape soon!

Play-in: Don’t You Want Me (Bahamas) vs. Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go (Soft Cell).  Don’t take covers too seriously if you can’t even take the originals too seriously!  This match-up gets weird, and it’s really a contest to see who will get taken down by Janis Joplin next round.

Play-in: It’s All Over Now Baby Blue (Them) vs. Satisfaction (Devo).  Them features a young Van Morrison against what my roommate Jake calls a properly angsty version of Satisfaction. (It was never believable that Mick Jagger was having trouble on this front.)

YOU MADE IT!  By Monday we’ll be down to 64 songs.