- Posts tagged Cover Songs
- Explore Cover Songs on posterous
The night I witnessed Willie Nelson make a room full of grown women breakdown and cry
It was somewhere close to 11:30pm, we had been drinking all day and my apartment was full of chicks. Well, let me qualify that for you: the chicks were actually my wife and her four best girl friends. We did in fact drink all day, out on a boat on Sydney harbour....and in a string of bars...and, finally, back in our apartment.
As was the case, and as I am want to do in situations like that one, turned to the stereo.
Usually when I kick-off a late night song splurge, I pour myself a tall glass of Wild Turkey with plenty of ice. The occasion in question though called for something with a little more moxie: The Grievous Angel.
What is the Grievous Angel? It has only two ingredients: Mango Gatorade and Jose Cuervo (your mouth is watering, isn't it?). I only break out this particular libation for creating late night stereo vibrations. It's origins date back to living in Florida, playing my tunes at top volume, hankering for a mood alteration and only having only the two aforementioned ingredients on hand.
Like they say, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with..."
With drink in hand, I started to pull songs from my vast collection in hopes of turing the girls on to new stuff. Once they were knee deep in a serendipitous sound sampling, I decided to throw 'em a (country) curve: Willie Nelson.
"Willie Nelson?!", they yelled out in unison. "Please don't play Willie Nelson. If you are going to play country, at least put on some Brad Paisley or Keith Urban".
[silence]
After they picked me up from the floor and wiped away the blood that tricked from my ears, I attempted to teach them a lesson about country music.
"Country music," I told them, "comes in four flavours: Willie, Johnny, Waylon and Merle. There is no room in country music for candy-assed cowboys, "guyliner" or GAP ad posers. Just because you sing about your truck, heartache and BBQs doesn't mean you are fucking country singer".
They laughed at me: "What do we want with that craggy ol' country fossil anyhow?"
Surely the drink had gotten to them. They were delirious, crazed from the heat, strung out on hubris...but, they persisted.
"What makes you think Willie Nelson is going to be able to sing anything that'll make us swoon over him? He looks like his horse has been riding him for all these years. He was lucky Julio Iglesias let him sing with him".
Things were getting out of control and really staring to amuse themselves. I had to put a stop to it and there was only one thing left to do...take a deep swig of the Grievous Angel, give the gals a steely look and pull out the big gun: "A Song for You"
Do you know this song? It was written by Leon Russell in 1970. Aside from Willie's version, it was most famously covered by Donnie Hathaway (another personal fave performer of mine). Here is a wikipedia link for the song if you want to see who else covered it (please, I BEG of you, forget the fact that Michael Buble covered this song...in fact, forget that Michael Buble ever existed).
"Song for You" is a flat out heartache no matter who sings it (aside from "you know who"..."MB"). I love the Willie version best. If you didn't know it before, after listening to his vocal, you know that that his voice is one of the true treasures of American music. It is not just country, it is Country; USA...pilgrims; pioneers; patriots.
For my my money it is one of the best straight vocal performance ever put on record. It is such a clean vocal. It has depth and sincerity and feels like an apology, a love letter and a pleading, yearning request for forgiveness and appreciation. Seriously...I am not overstating this. Really...
The girls decided to give me and Willie one shot to win them over. I played "Song for You" for them. I quieted the room, turned the lights down a bit, moderated the volume to give the vocal the right effect, and I hit play....
Have you ever had a good cry? The ones that make everything right and cause you to laugh out loud? You're not really sure why you are crying, but you feel the need to just emote. Yes? No? Well, this is what the room felt like at the end of that song. The girls that had never heard it (my wife excluded) sat quietly until sniffles and tears gave way to smiles and call-outs to "play it again...in fact, don't stop playing it".
I knew it would work. We played the song over and over again until one by one they started to nod off. I had tried to play other Willie tunes, but it was too late...they had been sweetly seduced by the Redheaded Stranger.
They swooned for Willie.
_____
You should have a listen to the other two versions I recommend: the original version by Leon Russell (again, he wrote the song) and the incredible, soul-drenched version by Donny Hathaway:
Also, you MUST watch this video of Leon, Willie and Ray Charles do this song on one of Willie's primetime TV "Willie & Friends" specials. Ray was in bad health and there was question if he could make the show. He ended up not only making the show, but stealing it with his performance here.
Watch Willie get lost in Ray's presence as he tries to hold back his own tears. Shit, I just stopped writing to watch it again...son of a bitch choked me right up. Whew. Powerful.
_____
Post Script:
When these girls flew from the States to visit us in Sydney in 2008, they all stayed at our apartment. Four women visitors, a wife, two dogs and me in one apartment. Can you imagine the shit-fight I would have had trying to get into the ONE bathroom?
I was a bit scared about this..until my wife approached me with one of the best ideas she has EVER come up with. She said, "Would you mind if I just rented you a small hotel room in the city while the girls are here?"
Reason #108 why I love my wife.
Ah the bachelors life...just like riding a bike. I felt like I was in my Boston apartment again: no TV, only beer and water in the fridge and music playing 24-7 (minus all the other stuff...because playing bachelor is much different that actually being one).
Here are some snaps of my (temporary) home-sweet-home.
- Posted from Sydney, Australia
These Days: How Gregg Allman stole Jackson Browne's song with ONE WORD (or "how to cover a song and not have it suck balls")
What's a cover song, really? Is it a "tribute" to an artist or is it just an excuse for not being able to come up with a song "as good" or any good songs at all? Maybe we should ask Steve Earle.
I just saw Earle last night here in London. It was my first time seeing him perform. I liked it. It was an earnest and humble performance: a tribute to his "teacher", Townes Van Zandt. Earle just released an entire album of Townes' song, aptly titles, "Townes".
Earle was unapologetic in his unabashed covering of Townes. He did it in tribute. He told us that this album of Townes penned tunes outsold his last two albums of original material ("as a singer/songwriter, that hurts a bit"). I was sitting 3rd row, dead center. I thoroughly enjoyed the show. He delivered each song with passion and told tall tales about times he and Townes shared.
[NOTE: This conversation I am starting here is not really a solo job. I really need to be having it in a bar with four other half-stoned, full drunk music freaks. That being said, do what you have to do in the comfort of your own interweb.]
Cover songs. Some are brilliant: Hendrix - "All Along the Watchtower". Some are fucking train-wrecks: Britney Spears - "Satisfaction". What I find funny about cover songs is that the "cover-er" is singing the "cover-ee's" lyrics, some of which are heartfelt and personal. Case in point: Jackson Browne's: "These Days".
You can argue that every one of Browne's songs are completely saturated with sentiment that oozes from every groove. How can another artist take a song like, "These days" and turn it into a full on autobiography sans parody? Don't ask Nico that question (her version: I have been in surgery theatres less aseptic than her version)
Ask Gregg Allman. He knows all too, dangerously, well.
Have you listened to Browne's, "These Days"? Have you had a listen to the lyrics? Let's jump right to the second and third verses:
Now if I seem to be afraid
To live the life I have made in song
Well it's just that I've been losing for so long These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
It is a contemplative song. he's looking forward, but also looking back. Jackson Browne: "I've been losing for so damn long that I am a bit hesitant to live my life in song". That's cool, Jackson. You can reconcile your past though, can't you. "Hey", he says, "I fucked up in the past, I haven't forgotten about that". Thanks for sharing how you do it...by forgiving yourself and counting quarter tones. His version is pleasant. It makes you feel good about forgetting some mistakes you have made and moving on.
Now...go listen to Gregg Allman's version. This...this is a cover song that completely dismantles the original version. It kidnaps it, takes it across the country, avoiding amber alerts along the way, and gives it a new identity...and forces it to live an entirely different life than originally intended. And it does it with ONE WORD. One kick-you-in-the-balls word.
Let's go back to that last verse:
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
Gregg takes the last line and swaps "forgotten" for aware. WHAMO! He take the song and turns it from jaunty, feel good, I'm OK-You're OK, tune to a I'm-still-neck-deep-in-the-shit, can't get out of my own way to save myself, present-tense, pity-party lament. I fucking love Gregg's version.
If you know Gregg's story [as told in the rock-press/history books and interviews]...he has many personal failures. Need a place to start, go here. Hey, the man has many successes as well...but that is not what this song is about.
Go back and look at the one line in the third verse: "Well it's just that I've been losing for so long". As Gregg sings this song, he is still losing and it is because of those failures that he just can't shake.
OK...now go listen to the two versions. They are not all that different stylistically. Gregg's is a bit more of a dirge. It may be my rock and roll fantasy, but I am sure he made the ONE WORD change before recording the song, which had to have an impact on his delivery.
Are you with me now? Gregg now owns that song. If I didn't know better, I would have thought Jackson covered him.
_____
A lot of people have covered this song. Do you think anyone else out-Jacksons Gregg?
