Great and Not so Great Covers
There’s something interesting in Nouvelle Vague’s version of the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton”, and it isn’t the novelty effect. There’s an insouciant poignancy in the song, that isn’t there in the Clash’s version, a shimmering, simmering insinuating sneer. The Clash was an arrogant thug. Nouvelle Vague is a precocious child, asking the beaten and bruised: “how yah gonna come”? Come on now. Are you as tough as you think you are? It’s superb.
The same goes for Cat Powers remake of the Stones’ “Satisfaction”. She has absorbed the song, chewed it over, fanged it a couple of times, and emerged with an utterly twisted, vicious, revision. It’s brilliant.
I say that because the idea of doing over a great song isn’t necessarily a bad one. But it is when Paul Anka does “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Rod Stewart does “It Had to be You” and now Carly Simon releases an album of torch ballads– I want to get out the torch.
There’s probably a lesser-known antecedent but I seem to recall that this awful trend started around 1979, when Linda Ronstadt’s career took a dive and she tried to reposition herself as a chanteuse with an album of pop “standards” by various allegedly great songwriters. Ronstadt, previously known for her country ballads and power-pop tunes, (“Different Drum”, “Long, Long Time”) was praised for her brave excursion into the mainstream, even though her performances of these songs were not particularly distinguished. To go with her new-found sense of sophistication, she lost weight and posed for some cheese-cake photos for Annie Liebowitz for Rolling Stone Magazine.
The critics are expected to fall over themselves to be the first to proclaim that they have such good taste that they could enjoy something that did not feature an screaming electric guitar or a hook.
And actually, I do believe that some of these, at least, are “great” songs, in the same way that some girls are “great” girls. They look so beautiful and refined and tasteful and sweet, you just want to buy them a diamond. Just don’t expect oral sex in return.
What you do not want to see in a great song is Rod Stewart’s lips behind it.
As for those reviewers– what are they going to do? It occurred to me that they are extremely unlikely to do otherwise than lavish praise on these wholesome tributes to the old fart school of music composition. Firstly, they would be absolutely stricken if anyone were to accuse them of having tunnel vision– don’t you know that “Summertime” is one of the greatest songs ever written? Secondly, I don’t think most of these critics, with the exception of the Times’ Stephen Holden, have a clue about what they are reviewing. The uniform adulation of mediocre vocalists like Norah Jones and Diana Krall tells you that a certain amount of posturing is going on. These women look great and they have astute management and they can mostly hold pitch. That’s about it.
If you’re really convinced that Diana Krall is a great singer, please name me a song or two performed by Emmy Lou Harris, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight, or Lucinda Williams that would reflect kindly on Ms. Krall’s talents in comparison.
Unlike the Nouvelle Vague’s version of “Guns of Brixton”, or Die Toten Hosen’s version of “Hang on Sloopy”, or Cat Powers’ searing “Satisfaction”, none of these artists actually bring a whole lot of originality or creativity to their remakes. If anything, as Holden observes, most of these updates are dumbed down, the orchestrations more like movie sound tracks than settings, the phrasing pedestrian and utterly predictable. Worse than that– the posturing. All the irreverence and inventiveness and wit and fun of rock’n’roll is gone. I am now an artist, as in, the artist will appear at 10:00, in an evening gown or tuxedo, and he or she will be serious. She is going to sell the song. He is going to hold notes longer than he does when singing “Maggie Mae”. The audience will grovel at 10:06:15, then return to their martinis.
What they have forgotten is that there is a reason that the Beatles were like a breath of fresh air in 1963, and why Bob Dylan mattered.
You want covers? I’ll give you GREAT covers:
Satisfaction (Cat Power)
I Fought the Law (The Clash)
My Back Pages (Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, etc.)
Positively Fourth Street (Lucinda Williams)
Hang on Sloopy (the Toten Hosen)
Downtown (The Killer Barbies)
Tower of Song (Nick Cave)
He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss) (Hole)
Oh Lonesome Me (Neil Young)
Wayfarin’ Stranger (Emmy-Lou Harris, with an exquisite lead acoustic guitar from Albert Lee)
Jolene (White Stripes)
You Aint Goin’ Nowhere (the Byrds)