Text And Subtext - An Adventure With Morrissey And The Smiths

Yesterday, I was somewhat surprised to find I didn't have enough new music bookmarked to fill a post. It's certainly not that I haven't been listening to plenty. It just looks as though I haven't been keeping a note of what it was.

When that happens it's usually either because I've been listening to familiar artists doing what they do, something I enjoy but don't necessarily find worth sharing, or because the new stuff I've discovered sounded good to hear once but not so good I wanted to call attention to it. That happens a lot.

Still, I wanted to do something musical on a Saturday. It always seems like the day for it. Luckily for me, late last night something really quite peculiar popped up in my feeds. 

To save everyone the trouble of following the link, it goes to a piece at NME entitled

"‘The Smiths Are Dead’ is a new Commodore 64 game about Morrissey". 

What the hell?! So much to unpack there.

Firstly, it's a text adventure. Apparently people still write those. I guess if you're going to revisit the 'eighties it's on point. Do people still play them, though? I mean, I loved a good tesxt adventure back in the day but I can't make myself enjoy them now.

Secondly, it's for the Commodore 64. That's still around? Well, yes, apparently. When I started reading the article I assumed it would be some kind of emulator project. Then I got to the part that said "While it is currently out of stock on the Amiga Store, fans should sign up for email notifications for when it is available again."

Unless you're Square Enix, you can't run out of stock of a digital product. And the Amiga Store (It exists.) hasn't. They've run out of cartridges. The Smiths Are Dead is (Or I guess I should say was and probably will be again, some day.) available in physical format. Specifically, cartridge. Go figure.

I do not intend to turn this into an investigation of why anyone would a) want to develop software for the Commodore 64 in 2023 or b) issue said software in a physical format that - to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge - the original C64 discontinued in favor of tape and disk the first chance it got. 

At this juncture I ought to say I never liked the Commodore 64 and never owned one. I preferred first the ZX Spectrum and later the Amiga 500. I actually still have an Amiga. It's fully functioning as far as I know, or at least it was the last time I used it, which would have been some time in the early 'nineties. Very, very occasionaly I toy with the idea of getting it out and looking at it but somehow I find the urge very easy to resist. As for using it... let's get real.

Never underestimate the draw of the nostalgia market, though. And I guess if you're going to tap that, it makes sense to double down. A Venn Diagram of the Smiths, home computing, the 1980s and adolescent angst would look like one big, filled-in circle, after all.

Anyway, like it or not, "The Smiths Are Dead" text adventure for the Commodore 64 is a thing that exists. It's set right at the point when the band has just split up (Hence the title, which also plays on the Smiths' album "The Queen Is Dead", as absolutely no-one reading this needed to be told, I'm sure.) and the game takes Morrissey's perspective as he prepares to record his first solo album. The cast features a list of characters well-known to anyone familiar with the British music scene of the time:

• Steven Patrick Morrissey 'Moz' is the ex-singer of The Smiths and the character we will take during the adventure.
• Gail Colson is my manager and the person who should help us redirect our career after the breakup of the group.
• Geoff Travis is the owner of the Rough Trade record label, which published the music of The Smiths.
• Stephen Street is a producer and a very prolific and valued musician in the English indie scene.
• Vinny Reilly is the ideologue of Durutti Column and a genius with the guitar.
• Andrew Paressi is a multi-functional artist who accompanied Morrissey at the start of Morrissey's solo career.

If you want to know more, I guess you'll just have to play the game. Always assuming you have a Commodore 64. With a cartridge port. And that the game ever comes back into stock. (Oh, alright. It is available as a digital download from itch.io as well. You can play it using an emulator. I might even do just that, one day.)

In the meantime, why not let's have some Smiths numbers? Everyone loves the Smiths, right? Just like everyone hates Morrissey, now. 

Only, we've all heard the songs so many times. Do we really need to hear them again? So let's have some covers of Smiths' songs! And heaven knows there are plenty to choose from. There can scarcely be any eighties' songwriters more covered than Morrissy and Marr.

Unfortunately, an awful lot of the covers sound an awful lot like the originals, something I've never really seen the point in. Covers ought to sound as unlike the originals as it's possible to get without not sounding like them at all. 

Also, just because there are so many and because I've decided to do this on the spur of the moment rather than work up to it over a number of weeks, I just don't have the time to sift through the thousands of faithful, respectful versions of This Charming Man and How Soon Is Now? on YouTube in search of something interesting, irreverent or original.

Luckily for me, plenty of people have done that already, so all I needed to do was leech off their hard work. At least, that gave me somewhere to start. From there, I relied on YouTube's recommend algorithm to throw up a few more that hadn't been included in every Best Smiths Covers list ever.

I've favored covers that have videos, but some of the best ones don't have any moving pictures, unfortunately, so I've had to accept a few static images as well. Also, since the game starts when the Smiths stop, I'm throwing in a few Morrissey solo numbers, god forgive me.

Enough preamble. Let's jangle!

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side - Holden

OMG! This is gorgeous! And double points for naming the band after a Salinger character then covering a Smiths' song. Talk about teenage alienation!  

Holden are a French duo. I'd never heard of them. It scares me how many great bands I've never heard of. It scares me even more how many I'll never hear at all.

How Soon Is Now? t.A.T.u

The oft-maligned, frequently misunderstood, always inspirational t.A.T.u, who I've loved ever since a blowhard I couldn't stand stormed out of a Yahoo Group I was in just because someone (Not me, sadly.) had the temerity to say they liked All The Things She Said when it first came out. Until then I didn't have any strong feelings one way or the other but I figured if he thought they were some kind of threat to the natural order, they had to be a force for good.

I really love the way Julia breaks the lines in strange places, like between "the" and "heir". It's typical of the idiosyncratic way the two of them phrase. They may not be the strongest singers but they're wonderful with a lyric. True storytellers, both of them.

This Charming Man - Stars

Here in a forceful, if louche, live rendition, opening with a heartfelt plea by frontman Torquil Campbell in which he exhorts everyone to go out and start a band withtheir friends so they'll never lose touch with each other.

I did that. Didn't work. Haven't seen any of them for decades. Just sayin', Torquil.

Girlfriend In A Coma - Mojo Nixon

I could have sworn I'd featured this one before but search says not. I seem to remember a conversation with Wilhelm about Mojo Nixon in the comments. Maybe it was at TAGN. 

I recommend watching this all the way through. The second half is the best part.

Ask - The Roberts Family

See? Not everyone's a cynic! Recorded during lockdown, apparently, although it looks like they're outside a beach hut. I hope you like the song because we're getting it again in a minute.

Let Me Kiss You - Nancy Sinatra feat. Morrissey

It's not like I was going to let this pass once I knew it existed. Nancy sounds sublime as always and the arrangement is gloriously crazy. Morrissey looks exceptionally sinister in that picture, though, doesn't he? Even by his terrifying standards, which is saying something.

Cada Dia Es Domingo (Everyday Is Like Sunday) - Mexrrissey

Again, I was almost certain I'd used this before but no. It's not even in my archive. I must just have watched it and moved on. Morrissey, of course, is famously Big In Mexico. So is Lana del Rey so I guess it balances out.

You're The One For Me, Fatty - planetbumi

I'm not sure how big Morrissey is in Indonesia these days but there's one hell of an indie scene in Jakarta that seems open to anything remotely redolent of the 'eighties and 'nineties so I guess he's doing okay. I always thought this was one of Moz's more overtly comic numbers, although it needs constantly to be stressed that almost all Morrissey lyrics are inherently amusing, usually intentionally so. 

It also can't be repeated often enough that the Smiths are actually a mosher's delight. All that angsty bedroom misery goes straight out the window once you hear these tunes played in a club. I never saw the Smiths but I did see Smiths tribute band These Charming Men once and believe me, it was exhausting! Pretty much like what you see above, really.

Just a couple more and then we'll wrap it up, I think. The longer I go on doing this, the more curious and exotic covers I'm finding. We could be here all day if I don't exert some self-discipline; something no-one ever accused Morrissey of doing.

Ask - Nina Shallman

I promised another version of Ask and here it is. Shimmering, I think, is the word. The dynamics on this are superb but where does that xylophone-style keyboard motif come from? It's not in the original, unless it's meant to be the guitar part. Sounds more like Peter Sarstedt's Frozen Orange Juice to me. 

Don't you just love the way she smiles so happily all the way through "It's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb that will bring us together"? And yes, there are seven bombs. I counted.

The Light 3000 - Schneider TM

There Is A light That Never Goes Out is probably a lot of people's favorite Smiths song. It's hard to replicate the initial impact of the first hearing, when it kind of rips your soul out. Even harder in a cover, which is why this glitched, bleached-out rewrite works so well. Go elsewhere, get to the same place.

This Night Has Opened My Eyes - WDRL

I was checking to see if Juice WRLD had ever covered a Smiths song, because it seemed like something he might have done (He hasn't. Didn't. Sad.) when I found this instead. Actually, that's not quite how it happened but I wish it was.

While I'm wishing, I wish I'd been the one to leave the comment on YouTube that says "This song makes me feel like I’m driving home late at night after dumping a body in a lake." Not that I've ever done anything like that...

C'mon! Now you're wondering, right?

Okay, I know I said two more but let's make it the round dozen. I mean, Morrissey would want imperial measures, I'm sure.

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others - Lilly Hates Roses

They're Polish. According to the text as translated by Google "Lilly Hates Roses, taking on the work of the British, pass well-known songs through the filter of their own sensitivity and already developed style. The result is unique arrangements in which The Smiths' music takes on an even deeper expression."

I don't know about all that but I like it.

And finally. We really couldn't do all of this without Rick Astley and Blossoms, could we? Their joyful reappropriation of the Smiths back catalog in recent times has gone a long way towards making it feel comfortable to listen to some of these songs again. I'm sure all Smiths' fans who've been having issues with Morrissey never shutting the fuck up would like to thank them.

Which song to choose, though? Oh, alright...

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - Rick Astley and Blossoms

It always was a bit of a plodder if we're honest but it's still a crowd-pleaser anyway. Not the finest sound quality but feel that crowd reaction.

And with that we're done. Until next time.

Wash That Stain Away - The AI Way!

Back in January last year, when we first heard the surprising news that Microsoft wanted to buy Activision-Blizzard, certain voices suggested the deal might be closed by that summer. Mostly, though, the feeling seemed to be that it would be wrapped up by the end of the following financial year.

It's taking a bit longer than that. The deal is still up in the air more than fifteen months later. I confess to finding the whole process largely mystifying. Angry Onions tried to explain to me in the comment thread to a post over at TAGN, why so many national and regional authorities get to have a say in whether two commercial entities can merge. I understood his reasoning but I'm still somewhat hazy on what supranational mechanism could stop them if they wanted to do it anyway.

Polygon has an excellent, lucid and understandable timeline of progress to date, in which it's stated that "...the Competition and Markets Authority — unlike the FTC in the U.S. — still has the legal power to stop the merger from happening." Exactly how or why a regulatory authority in the United Kingdom should be able to derail a process involving two multinationals of American origin, while the American authorities themselves are apparently powerless to do so without the help of the courts is, I fear, something I'd probably have needed to study either law or economics at University, rather than English, to understand. 

Because I now seem to be incapable of thinking of a question without immediately feeling the need to Ask an AI (Great Gameshow idea there...) as soon as I finished typing that last paragraph I ran the problem past Bard, who gave me a very clear and unequivocal reply.

 I asked

If the CMA continues to block the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, but all other relevant regulators approve it, can the deal go through?

Bard replied

"No, the deal cannot go through if the CMA continues to block it. The CMA is one of the regulators that must approve the deal, and its decision is final. If the CMA blocks the deal, it will not be able to go through, even if all other regulators approve it."

I didn't ask Bard for any background information but Bard really likes the sound of its own voice. It's like one of those annoying people you meet at bus stops who, when you ask them when  the bus is due, insist on telling you the entire history of public transport all the way back to the introduction of the steam-powered omnibus in 1833. (I googled that, just so you know it's not the sort of information I keep in my head.)

As Bard explains it

"The CMA is concerned that the deal would give Microsoft too much power in the cloud gaming market. Microsoft already has a strong position in the console gaming market, and the CMA is worried that it could use its power to stifle competition in the cloud gaming market.

Microsoft has tried to address the CMA's concerns by offering to license Activision games to competing cloud gaming platforms. However, the CMA has not been persuaded by this offer.

Microsoft has said that it is considering appealing the CMA's decision. However, it is not clear whether an appeal would be successful."

Not content with merely contextualizing, Bard then began to extemporize, shifting to the conditional to suggest some possible ramifications:

"If the deal is blocked, it would be a major setback for Microsoft. The acquisition of Activision Blizzard would have given Microsoft a major boost in the gaming industry. It would have also given Microsoft a significant foothold in the cloud gaming market."

Finally, in a move that both surprised and mildly disturbed me, Bard expressed what seems very much like an unprompted, personal opinion:

"The blocking of the deal would also be a setback for the gaming industry as a whole. The acquisition of Activision Blizzard would have created a more competitive gaming industry. It would have also given gamers more choices."

Would it, though? Are we sure about that? I mean, I might have expected something of the kind from Microsoft's Bing, given the issues involved, but from Google's pet AI?

If AIs are going to start acting as though they have opinions and personalities, it's going to open up whole new vistas of possibilities, not all of them appealing. Think of the possible PR disasters when AI-generated celebrities make public appearances! Surely one of the biggest attractions of artificial artists for their handlers is tractability? Reliability? Innocuousness? Okay, that's three attractions but you get the idea.

 If I'd authorised and paid a lot of money for an AI pop star, I'd like to think I could rely on them not to, oh, let's say, picking something purely at random, find themselves arraigned for imaginary acts of "public lewdness" or "firearm possession and assault", even if it was only in the court of public opinion. Then again, maybe it wouldn't be so terrible...

 

Those incidents, traumatic and embarrassing as they may have seemed for the stars involved at the time, became turning points in their lives and careers. As a direct result, George came out and continued to be a much-loved entertainer until his untimely death, while Adam received the help he needed with his mental health issues and returned to being... well, Adam Ant. It's still fine to like George Michael and about as fine as it ever was to like Adam Ant, who is, after all, the man who wrote both "Whip in my Valise" and "Goody Two Shoes", two wildly contradictory accounts of what has been widely assumed to be one life - his own.

 

Things don't always turn out that well, sadly. I'm sure we can all compile our own lists of artists, performers, entertainers, writers and musicians, the mere mention of whose name in polite conversation would be considered in the poorest of taste. To speak approvingly of their work would be positively unthinkable. 

Simon Reynolds posted a fine meditation on the way even the chance of learning something unsettling about one of your favorite artists makes searching for information about them a fraught process. It's a problem I run into almost every time I compile another music post. 

 

In the piece, Reynolds refers to a recently-published book on the subject; Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer. The book has four and a half stars on Amazon but it was rather poorly received by the Guardian's reviewer Rachel Cook, who called it "thin", "ill-researched" and "crude". I have a proof copy but I've yet to start on it so I'll reserve judgment. I will say I'm looking forward to reading it, though.

The core problem both the book and Simon's post address is whether, once you know awful things about awful people, it's possible to go on enjoying their not-at-all-awful work. And if it is possible, is it advisable? Or even permissible?

I am not going to answer that question here. Obviously. I'm not God. Or your spiritual adviser. Or your mother. Neither am I going to express a conviction or even, really, much of an opinion. What I am going to do is ask some more questions. Helpful, aren't I?

We might appear to have strayed some distance from the ostensible topic of this post, the Microsoft/Blizzard story, but trust me; there's a connection. Like many would-be consumers of Blizzard's not-all-that-varied portfolio of games, the revelations of the last few years have put something of a crimp in my willingness to participate, due to not wanting to be seen to be complicit. Put simply, I'd quite like to play World of Warcraft once in a while but I don't want to look like any more of a hypocrite than I usually do. I said I wouldn't play WoW until something changed and as far as I can see, nothing has.

I was rather counting on the Microsoft acquisition to draw a line under the acts of the old regime and allow me to at least imagine a fresh page had been turned. It's a fairly flimsy fig-leaf, given many of the purported perpetrators are probably still sitting at the same desks but I was raised as a Quaker and the concept of forgiveness, not to mention turning the other cheek, is a hard one to erase.

All of which leaves me wondering both where I'll be, morally, if the deal falls through and how, specifically, it will affect me in the future as a potential Blizzard customer living in the legal jurisdiction that derailed the whole thing. If I was Bobby Kotick (Euuuu!) I'd be tempted to cut the pipe to the U.K. and carry on without us. Can he do that? 

There's another aspect to all of this that occured to me while I was trying to find an AI model of Lana del Rey so I could hear what it would be like if she were to cover some of my favorite songs by people she's probably never heard of, let alone heard. Or even by me (Same thing, obviously.). I found myself wondering exactly where the fault-line of corruption lies.

Simon Reynolds uses the word "stain" to describe the way the misdeeds of a creator seep back through the timeline to discolor even the work they made before they did the things we revile them for now. He muses on how far back you'd need to go before listening to Michael Jackson might feel comfortable again; "In the aftermath of watching Leaving Neverland, I found myself speculating pointlessly: "well, probably he wasn’t abusing anyone circa Off The Wall. "  Thriller – hmmm.... gets a bit cloudier."

He doesn't mention it but there's another element to consider: how about cover versions? Hardly anyone is willing to admit to listening to Gary Glitter after the things he's done but damn, Rock `n` Roll Part 1  is still thrilling half a century later, isn't it? If we can't enjoy the original, what about the version The Undertones recorded for John Peel in 1980? 

Does running a song through the filter of another artist wash out that stain? Or does it just spread the taint to whoever was thoughtless enough to cover a monster in the first place? Does it make a difference if the cover was recorded before or after the news broke?

It's complicated but I can make it more so if you want. Sticking just to front-persons for a moment (The question of whether the drummer's indiscretions invalidate the reputation of the entire band being another difficult-to-parse moral poser.) what if you could replace the offending singer with an artificially generated artist of your choosing? Okay, maybe Rock 'n' Roll Pt 1 wouldn't be the best example, what with Gary contributing not much more than the occasional "Hey!", but if you were to strip his vocals out of, say, I'm The Leader of the Gang (I Am), and replace them with Freddy Mercury, who everyone loves...?

 

Tricky, isn't it? Especially when you factor in the moral quandaries over whether it's acceptable to have one artist cover another without the participation or even the consent of either. 

You can project this into gaming if you like feeling uncomfortable with all your choices. Getting back to Blizzard, if I were to try to sidestep my moral misgivings by signing up to a rogue server running a version of current content, assuming there are any, would I be clear of complicity because none of my time or money would benefit Blizzard? Better yet, maybe the sheer illegality of it would even count as an active strike against the evil empire itself! Let's stick it to The Man, right?

Or would I still be mired in moral misgivings by dint of my continuing enjoyment  of assets and concepts originally created under the same regime I purport to despise? At what remove does something become clean enough for the stain not to show any more? I mean, I drink Fanta sometimes. Doesn't make me a Nazi, does it?

 

Damn. I hit Godwin's law! Time to stop.

Lana Del Rey And Princess Chelsea Drinking Cocktails On The Porch Of A Whitewood Mansion In The American South With Grimes Nearby Silently Watching

Insincere apologies for another music post so soon after the last one but it's Sunday, I'm technically on holiday, and although I have some other ideas, they'd all be too much trouble. I'm feeling lazy. Also, I fancy some sounds.

Enough excuses. Let's do this.

So, of the three music posts I have semi-planned, two are about New York and require both research and actual writing. The third is just more covers so that's the one we're having. I have no regrets about that. Cover versions were almost where music started on this blog and if there are features here then they're one. 

I ought to codify all this stuff. I'll get right on that, when I next have nothing better to do.

Baby's On Fire - Groupie (Original by Eno)

This one could have gone in one of those New York posts but I have more by the same band that can do for those, if I need them. There are a surprising number of covers of this particular Eno tune. You wouldn't imagine it would be that well-known. Maybe it's easy to play. The best by far is this one by Nightmare and the Cat, which I've featured before. I bought an album by them, purely on the strength of it, although I rather wish I hadn't.

I did consider a post of nothing but babies on fire but I know no-one's really going to sit through eight or nine versions of the same song, which is why I'm going to make a playlist for my YouTube channel instead. They'll watch anything over there.

Eno's been in the news a lot of late. My news, that is. He has a new album out, a collab with Fred Again. I've listened to some of it. It's ambient Eno with vocals but unfortunately not his. I wish he'd sing more. In the unfathomable way of the modern world, you can listen to it all for free if you want. It's on Fred Again's YT channel. I don't pretend to understand how the economics of all that play out. Maybe it's because they're genuine artists. Maybe they're just too rich to care. 

Private Idaho - Groupie (Original by the B52s)

Oh, look! It's Groupie again! Different line-up but then it was five years ago. Is it me or do all B52's songs sound almost exactly the same? I'm not complaining. It's a great sound and no-one else can really do it right so I can't blame them for knocking them out one after another.

As B52's covers go, this is sprightly. They're too often leaden. The drummer really needs to be in a Talking Heads tribute band with a voice like that, though. He's a dead ringer for David Byrne, even if he looks more like a slimmed-down Eugene out of the Rezillos.

Black Hole Sun - King Princess (Original by Soundgarden)

For one whole half second I thought of putting some kind of post together to nod at the Recent Royal Event. I typed "King" into the search field in my music archive but the results were problematic. Not sure I want to re-visit my King Khan years.

Grunge was a musical trend I didn't much appreciate when it was around. Mrs Bhagpuss had more time for it than I did although I think it was the anti-fashion fashion she liked more than the music. Some of the tunes have aged better than I'd have expected all the same, especially when they're cleaned up and de-grungified, like this.

This Is How It Feels - The New Pornographers (Original by Inspiral Carpets)

Madchester. The Second Summer of Love. Baggy. Acid House. Another trend - or set of trends - I wasn't a hundred per cent sold on at the time. I think you'd have needed to be taking more drugs and different drugs than I was to have felt the full impact. 

It's not a musical moment particularly remembered for its wistfulness but there was some, as this plaintive unpicking of the Inspiral Carpets' more forceful performance makes clear. Looking back, there was a good deal more gloom and introspection in there than all those smiley badges would have had you believe, I think.

Cardigan - Lana del Rey AI (Original by Taylor Swift)

Oh, now you did it! You just had to go there, didn't you? 

Well, yes I did. I find this whole leakthrough from an alternate reality absolutely fascinating. If certain cosmologists are correct in their theories, every one of these imaginary recording sessions has happened/is happening/will happen, so it's not just possible, it's inevitable. We're seeing reality here. Or hearing it.

I've listened to a bunch of AI versions of "Lana" doing other peoples' songs and they vary in inauthenticity quite a bit. This one is perhaps the most convincing I've heard. It has her intonation down pretty much perfectly. If it hadn't been tagged AI, I wouldn't have questioned it for a moment. 

It's not just the tone and the timbre of her voice, though; it's the way it gets her phrasing that's really shocking. Lana has always had a playful, unpredictable way with line breaks and enjambement and here's the AI, breaking up Taylor Swift's steadier pacing to give the whole thing a riskier, more fragile edge. Of course, it helps that Cardigan is one of Taylor's most Lanaesque compositions, from her most Lanaesque album, but still. It's remarkable.

The one real signal that something's not quite right is that odd, interstellar buzzing at the end of some of the held notes. It sounds like interference on the line. I like it, though. If it's unintended, then it's felicitous. 

God Only Knows - The Beatles AI (Original by The Beach Boys)

This, though...

It's been getting a lot of attention. I first saw it reported by NME, who made the point that God Only Knows was "previously hailed by Paul McCartney as being his favourite song of all time." What Paul thinks of this conglomeration hasn't yet been reported. Maybe he likes it. Liam Gallagher apparently loves the entire "lost Oasis album" which was created by a real band writing the songs and laying down the backing tracks, then having an AI dub "Liam's" vocals over the result.

When the Beat Boys' God Only Knows started up, I thought it did sound eerily like The Beatles doing The Beach Boys (In a manner of speaking...). It seemed as though I could pick out Paul's voice on lead and the arrangement felt solidly Sgt. Pepper era George Martin. 

As the track went on, though, I found it was becoming more and more Beach Boys and less and less Beatles. By the time most of the instrumentation drops out towards the end and all that's left are the harmonies, I wouldn't have had a clue who was supposed to be singing. It could be a bunch of session singers working on a track for one of those Top Twenty albums they used to sell in newsagents back in the seventies.

I'm not sure if that's a criticism of the "cover" itself or the AI. More that those sixties stylings have become so generic in and of themselves they all may just as well be AIs now. I'd have to say that most 1960s pop songs don't sound very real to me any more, which offers an insight both into my state of mind and the metaphysical nature of reality rather than making any point about quality of the songs themselves.

Paris Texas - Grimes AI (Original by Lana del Rey)

Now it's getting interesting. So, this was made with the new Grimes-authorized, anyone can use it, AI toolset Elf.Tech. The YouTube creator who made it, BumbleBeePixie, calls it " the "AI" cover that no one asked for" and apologizes because "It's not that well polished and some bits could be sang better." A commenter agrees, saying "Also it’s sung out of tune".

I don't know. I thought it was pretty good, albeit maybe not for the right reasons. I don't know Grimes' voice or style nearly well enough to judge how much or how little it sounds like her. I do, however, know exactly what Princess Chelsea sounds like, having listened to her magnificent album "The Loneliest Girl" dozens of times and what she sounds like is this. 

Sound familiar?  Is it a complete co-incidence or does Grimes always sound like Princess Chelsea? I guess I'm going to have to listen to some Grimes to find out... Okay, well, maybe she does a little, around the edges, but not really so you'd notice if you weren't looking for it. 

It must be in the combo. I guess Grimes + Lana = Princess Chelsea? There's an equation I wouldn't have solved without AI. So it does have a use!

And that's enough for now. This post sure went in a direction I wasn't intending. Also, I now have the URL of a website where you can make your own AI covers for free so I have better things to do with my Sunday evening than sit here typing. 

I'd best get on with it before The Man wakes up and stops all our fun.

Take Everything Away

I wasn't going to do another music post just quite yet but then a couple or three things came up and now I am. One of them is AI-related, too, so there's that...

In fact, why don't we start there? I was wandering about in YouTube this afternoon when I came across something you don't see very often - a cover of an Ourselves The Elves song. You remember Ourselves The Elves, right? No, thought not.

Well, anyway, they're from Manilla and they're responsible for one of my favorite songs of the last ten years, the yearning, haunting, mysterious Cincinnati Clocks. I was certain I'd featured the mesmerizing live perfomance they gave back in 2014 for SOFAR but search can't confirm I ever did so I'm more than happy to correct that now.

Cincinnati Clocks - Ourselves The Elves

Ourselves The Elves, who are still going, by the way, have more than one great song to their name. There's the sixties-inflected singalong I Wouldn't Mind for one and Uncertainly for another. It was finding a cover of that last one that started all this, whatever it is.

Uncertainly - Alexie Karr (Ourselves The Elves cover)

Now, if you happen to be the one person who actually clicked through the link and listened to the original, then listened to the cover, you'll have noticed the backing track sounds identical. That's because it is.

In the notes, Alexie Karr credits "the instrumental" to something called "vocalremover.org". I was curious about that so I checked it out. Vocalremover is a free-to-use website that "will help remove vocals from a song". The name pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

To give it a little more context, albeit not much, "Once you choose a song, artificial intelligence will separate the vocals from the instrumental ones. You will get two tracks - a karaoke version of your song (no vocals) and acapella version (isolated vocals)." 

And it's all completely free, apparently. No, really, it is. "Despite the complexity and high cost of service, you can use it absolutely free." And it's fast, too. "Processing usually takes about 10 seconds."

What's more, it totally works. I've tried it. I might even use it to do some covers of my own except, as vocalremover points out, this is really nothing more than karaoke. A really interesting cover is always diffferent from the original, not identical except for the singing. 

Ah, but look and listen to that Alexie Karr video. She's used AI to strip the vocal out of the original recording and - I'm guessing, though she doesn't credit it - more AI to create the visualization and what she's made is a small piece of art. 

I wouldn't mind doing that. It may not be wholly original but it's not wholly unoriginal either. As Everett True said this week, on his less-than-triumphal return to blogging, "There is immediate satisfaction to be had in creating music", even if it is, as it is in his case, through banging out tuneless piano covers on YouTube that hardly anyone ever sees. 

All of which raises the question of whether copying is in and of itself a creative act. 

Cello Song - Fontaines D.C. (Nick Drake cover)

Well, obviously if you do it like that...

That's either the second, or maybe the third, promotional release from the upcoming Nick Drake covers album I mentioned a while back. The first was the sublime Let's Eat Grandma cover of From The Morning. The third, or maybe the second, was this gem:

I Think They're Leaving Me Behind - Katherine Priddy (Nick Drake cover)

I didn't think I was all that interested in hearing thirty versions of Nick Drake songs. I am now. I'd love to see a full track listing to find out just who's been invited to contribute and who picked which song but I guess I'll have to wait a while longer. Whoever it is sure knows how to build up expectations. Let's just hope they can satisfy them.

The thing about covers, though, or one of the things, is that unless you know the original - or another cover of it - they're just songs. Which is fine. They'll be your originals, then. But it does strip away a layer. It's the differences that make covers so intriguing.

Bizarre Love Triangle - The Anchoress (New Order cover)

This, for example, is very like the original and yet somehow not all that much like it at all. If there's one thing no-one ever accused New Order of sounding it would probably be lush. This is as rich as cream and as smooth as cream and as full as cream.

In an interview she gave about recording this, The Anchoress referenced Tori Amos, who has to be among the most visionary of all cover artists. She tears songs down to the bones and builds them back into something new. Here she is, deconstructing a Bruce Springsteen thumper we've all heard too many times, making it breathe again.

I'm On Fire - Tori Amos (Bruce Springsteen cover)

When it comes to Springsteen covers that sound nothing like the original, though, Suicide's takes some beating. This is literally unrecognizeable other than Alan Vega repeating the title a couple of times at the start. I'm not sure it even counts as a cover in any meaningful way and yet it makes perfect sense as a tribute to The Boss and the rich, rock history atop which he stands.

Born In The U.S.A. - Suicide - (Bruce Springsteen cover)

If Suicide covering Springsteen seems strange, let's not forget Springsteen's covered Suicide too. He's a fan, apparently. There's no figuring musicians. Dylan's been to see Metallica live. Twice!

I'm going to finish this with something that's not exactly a cover but runs with the same pack. This couldn't have happened before video-sharing platforms like YouTube and universal access to what used to be professional editing software.

You Should See Me In A Crown - Dodge (Billie Eilish/Locke & Key mashup)

It's obvious how I came to find that one. It's a pretty good meld but I wonder if it wouldn't be better if you stripped the dialog out using vocalremover. Maybe. Maybe not. But the tools are getting better and freer all  the time and AI is going to smooth a lot of the rough spots down so you can do this stuff at home more easily than ever. And it's already easier than anyone could have imagined it would be a decade ago.

If I was twenty I would be all over this shit. Maybe I should be anyway. Maybe I already am.

And A Child Shall Lead Us

Sometimes inspiration strikes from the unlikeliest of places. Who would have thought the first single by Madonna's daughter Lourdes “Lola” Leon, aka Lolahol, would lead to a journey of discovery?

Certainly not me, when I read the NME's admirably po-faced news squib announcing the release of Lock&Key with choice quotes such as "“I don’t have a specific goal. I probably should" and "As for music, I can sing. I just don’t care about it."

Are you having 90s flashbacks? I am.

The only reason I clicked the link was this: "hyperpop-oriented". Just that phrase. Of all the many, multifarious musical movements of the last few years, the one I feel most drawn to is hyperpop. The glitchy, transcendent jitter, drenched in hypersaturated aural color, denaturized, animated, irreal. It scratches behind my eyes like the smell of burning tinsel.

Lolahol - Lock&key

I wasn't expecting a lot but it's a sleek, shifting, silky groove. Reminds me of those mid-90s jams I liked, trance-tinged trip-hop fellow travellers like Sneaker Pimps or Snowpony. The skittering drum and bass backbeat, the skyline trumpet, the alienated, affectless delivery. I love it.

Not to be obvious but I was curious as to the provenance. Lola is right. She can sing. If she doesn't care about music, though, where did the rest come from? 

New York, of course. Specifically, New York experimental pop artist Alexandra Drewchin, aka Eartheater, credited with not just co-writing and co-producing the song but also the video. 

Naturally, I checked Eartheater's own work next.

Eartheater - How To Fight

Disturbing. Definitely NSFW. 

Eartheater- Mitosis

Nor is that. The word headfuck comes to mind.

The first reminds of me Lana, when she's singing with her head voice. I really love Lana when she sings with her head voice. Then again I love her when she sings with any voice, so that's not really helping, is it? 

The second also reminds me of someone but I can't quite place who. I like it, anyway.

When I'd sated myself on Eartheater solo I started rummaging around in the recommendations and I spotted a familiar title. 

Sega Bodega and Eartheater - Fade Into You

I assume everyone's familiar with the original. I've linked it before, maybe more than once. I'll do it again. One of the greats. Deserves every link it gets.

Here's the thing about covers: if you don't know the original, they're just songs. I love covers but for all the effort I make, as time expands I recognize fewer of the originals. When I find a streak I chase it.

Sega Bodega, a name new to me, spent some lockdown capital on a series of collaborative covers with a bunch of other people I never heard of either. The project was compiled into a charitable collection called Reestablishing Connection to raise money for the AIM COVID-19 Crisis Fund, helping independent musicians and associated workers "suffering serious hardship as a result of cancelled artist projects". You can still buy it on Bandcamp, although what happens to the money now lockdown is over I couldn't tell you.

The album features five covers and bar one, they're all songs I know. And like. And they're great covers (Although I'm not sold on the videos.) Better than the originals, even. Some.

Sega Bodega and Trustfall - White Flag

I couldn't with any honesty say I like Dido. I mean, I don't not like her... She's one of those artists like Sade or David Grey who was just somehow always there, y'know? At dinner parties in the 90s, mostly.

That is a stunning cover of an original I wouldn't even have been able to tell you I knew. The vocoder makes it reminiscent of Laurie Anderson. An ageless, dated sound.

Sega Bodega and Isamaya Ffrench - Feel

Ah, Robbie. You can't but love him, can you? Well, maybe. I wouldn't switch him off if he came on the radio, let's go with that. It's a compliment. I'd turn the cover up, though. And its another original I forgot I knew.

This next one everyone knows.

Sega Bodega and Dorian Electra - Teenage Dirtbag

That's another great cover, although it's not the first time I've heard the song all loved up, slowed down, ironicized and de-ironicized. Phoebe Bridgers does a great acoustic version, too. It's one of those songs. Everyone want  a crack at it.

Sega Bodega and Teddy Geiger - Sometimes

We're all team Brittney now, right? I know I am. Wasn't always, sadly. We learn. We learn. I know the original but I couldn't tell you how.

And finally...

Sega Bodega and Lafawndah - Teardrop

Saved the best 'til last, I think. It could be a new genre - trip-prog. How I'd imagine a Geoff Barrow remix of Gentle Giant might sound. A scary prospect, for sure.

Of course, once I'd worked my way through that lot I had to go follow links to all the collaborators but that's a post for another day. And it would be plain rude not to end with one of Sega Bodega's own numbers. 

That's good. I'd listen to that on repeat for an hour or two. The video's - um - interesting, too.

That's all I have for now. Thanks again to Lourdes "Lola" Leon aka Lolahol - for introducing me to a whole new scene I might never have found. Say "Hi" to your mom for me, if you ever read this. Tell her I like her stuff too. 

Who doesn't?

Say Anything.

I started a couple of posts after I came home from work this evening but they were so bad I had to delete them. They weren't even worthy of a spot in draft folder limbo. 

It was clear I had no inspiration and nothing to say today, so I started thinking maybe I should take the hint, skip a day and finally break my run, like I've been talking about doing for a while now. 

But then I thought of something. Everyone is probably playing Endwalker. Or at least waiting in a queue to play Endwalker. No-one's going to be reading anything I write. I can post anything I want!

Oh, boy! Let's do it! (My Luci T-shirt says that. It's good advice.)

This morning after breakfast, before I left for work, I just had time to read this news item on Stereogum, which informed me Lana del Rey had been named Artist Of The Decade by Variety magazine. I should bloody well think so, too!

I watched the embedded video. Both of them, actually. Award acceptance speeches are often odd but this one's gloriously off-kilter. I just loved it. I wonder what it means?

Do you think she's going to get a job in a bank or an insurance company? I hope not.

I can only think of one famous person who actually did that mid-career and that was the comedian Nick Hancock, who left showbiz to work as a mortgage broker. That didn't go very well. He lasted a year before quitting and hasn't really made it back into the public consciousness since, although not for want of trying.

There is, it has to be said, quite a difference between hosting a clutch of laddish TV panel games and being named Artist of the Decade by the Show Business Bible. I think we Lana fans are probably safe. Or as safe as we ever are.

Incidentally, I have discovered another Lana fan in the bookshop where I work, which makes for some interesting workplace conversations. It was a bit of a surprise because he normally favors the likes of Rammstein and only today he was waxing lyrical about the Cardiacs. Just goes to show her reach. Artist of the decade, indeed!

I suppose we could have a bit of Rammstein and the Cardiacs now, just so we know who we're talking about. For a comparison with Lana, see any number of past and future posts.

That was disturbing. I don't recommend digging into their back catalog without wearing protective equipment. Now for one of my favorites by Rammstein.

One of the tuneful ones, that was. And one of the less upsetting videos. There used to be a surprising number of Rammstein fans where I work but I think most of them have left, now. 

Okay, maybe it's time for something lighter. How about Jenny Lewis? She's always fun. Here she is, singing a song about how all you need to be happy is a puppy and a truck. It's called Puppy and a Truck. I guess that about covers it.

Hmm. That first verse is a bit of a downer, come to think of it. Still, puppy and a truck, eh? All alright in the end.

Bootlegger turn. I've never been much of a Dave Grohl fan. No, that's disingenuous. I don't think I've ever knowingly listened to a Foo Fighters song. I have an idea what I think they sound like but I don't believe in sullying my prejudices with actual facts so I've taken great care to avoid hearing anything they've ever done.

Until now. To be fair, this is just Dave Grohl, not his band. And it's a cover, not one of his band's songs. So I'm good, still. He has a book out that I keep having to pick up and look at and it seems pretty interesting plus I heard him talking in some thing I watched the other day and he seemed like a very smart, articulate guy. It's annoying when people won't conform to your mindlessly ignorant expectations, isn't it?

That just seems wrong in so many ways but I guess he knows what he's doing. I hope so, because I laughed even though I felt I shouldn't have.

Okay, if we're burning bridges... I don't have much excuse for posting this. I mean, just because sixteen million people have watched it doesn't make any of them right, does it? Except they are. It's great. I love a big singalong chorus.

 We didn't have them quite like that in my day. Oh, wait...

And... that's probably enough self-indulgence for one Sunday evening. Good thing no-one's reading any of this, eh?

Oh, hang on, I forgot. One more! I read  the excellent Craig Brown's excellent book on the Beatles recently. Are the Beatles excellent, too? I dunno. Read the book and decide for yourself. It's called "One, Two, Three, Four" and I recommend it even if you don't like the Beatles. I don't particularly like them, myself, although I find them historically and culturally fascinating. I read the book because Craig Brown is a superb collater of facts and anecdotes and a master at making mosaics that bring the past to life. 

Of course, it had the side effect of making me go look at Beatles-related stuff on YouTube, except what I really looked at was Yoko Ono. I've always liked Yoko, possibly more than I ever liked the Beatles. I've never liked John Lennon much (In the way we don't like famous people we've never met and know almost nothing about.) but he gets a whole lot more interesting (and listenable) after he got together with her. I do very much like the stuff he did with the Plastic Ono Band right after the Beatles broke up, especially the rip-roaring Live Peace in Toronto album, which I own and used to play all the time when punk was hot. It fitted right in. 

 

I liked the rock'n'roll covers but what I mostly played was side two, which is Yoko screaming for about twenty minutes. The shorter of the two songs she screams is "Don't Worry Kyoko, Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow". It wasn't until I read Craig Brown's book that I realized Kyoko is actually the name of Yoko's daughter, who was about five years old when that performance was recorded.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Anyway, I was looking at various versions of that online when I found this one by the unlikelily-named Tater Totz. They were some kind of side project incorporating members of well-known punk outfits Redd Kross and White Flag among others. They recorded a couple of covers albums in the late 80s, one of which also featured Cherie Curry of the Runaways. Presumably because there were several Beatles numbers among the songs they chose, they somehow ended up playing a big Beatles convention in Los Angeles called BeatleFest '88.

I have no idea what the rest of their set consisted of but the climax was this astonishingly aggressive version of Yoko's signature tune, "Don't Worry Kyoko...". Yoko is famously unpopular with most Beatles fans and her music is famously unpopular with almost everyone. As the notes provided by the curator of the YouTube channel politely put it, "this caused many of the audience to protest. The band was lead off of the property by security right after the performance."

If you read Craig Brown's book, you'll realize that sort of behavior would have been considered extremely mild by the Beatles original, German fan base and the Beatles themselves did things on stage that were far more outrageous. It's amazing what you can learn by reading.

Oh, did I inadvertently make some kind of ironic, self-reflexive point? Sorry about that.

You'll Be My Mirror

In the spirit of shorter posts, here's one that probably ought to be a tweet, if only I was on Twitter. Which, technically, I am, not that I ever log in.

I was amused yesterday to see the following announcement on Pitchfork:

Kurt Vile, Michael Stipe, Iggy Pop, St. Vincent, and More Cover Velvet Underground & Nico for Tribute Album

Sounds kind of familiar...

I suspect the upcoming version is going to be a tad more commercial than mine would have been. Here's the line-up:

01 Michael Stipe: “Sunday Morning”
02 Matt Berninger: “I’m Waiting for the Man”
03 Sharon Van Etten with Angel Olsen: “Femme Fatale”
04 Andrew Bird / Lucius: “Venus in Furs”
05 Kurt Vile & The Violators: “Run Run Run”
06 St. Vincent / Thomas Bartlett: “All Tomorrow’s Parties”
07 Thurston Moore: “Heroin” [ft. Bobby Gillespie]
08 King Princess: “There She Goes Again”
09 Courtney Barnett: “I’ll Be Your Mirror”
10 Fontaines D.C.: “The Black Angel’s Song of Death” (Sic)
11 Iggy Pop / Matt Sweeney: “European Son”

Positively an all-star affair compared to what I went with:

01 Petite Meller: “Sunday Morning”
02 Dan Lyons: “I’m Waiting for the Man”
03 Sasha Belyava: “Femme Fatale”
04 Ängie: “Venus in Furs”
05 Emily Loizeau: “Run Run Run”
06 A.B.B.A feat. Elfin Bow: “All Tomorrow’s Parties”
07 Opal feat. Hope Sandoval: “Heroin”
08 Hatsune Miku: “There She Goes Again”
09 Emma Elisabeth: “I’ll Be Your Mirror”
10 You Can't Win, Charlie Brown.: “The Black Angel’s Death Song”
11 Matt Berninger: “European Son”

Matt Berninger is the only one to make both lists. And he picked what are, in my opinion, and for very different reasons, the two hardest tracks to cover. Good on you, Matt!

I look forward to hearing the results. Those are some very talented people. 

So far all we have to judge by is Kurt Vile's take on "Run Run Run". He's been a big favorite of Mrs Bhagpuss since she saw him do a televised Glastonbury set a couple of years back. I like him too, although not as much as she does. He sets a high bar for the rest of them, I'd say.

The full version clocks in at a mesmeric seven minutes. I recommend listening to it in full. There's no video for long version, though, so we're going to have to have to settle for the four-minute radio edit instead.

Now I need to think of another album I can wreck. Not that I want to give anyone ideas.

Sweetest Of The Janes

Almost any time the name Miley Cyrus is mentioned in our house, something that happens more often than you might imagine, Mrs. Bhagpuss can usually be relied upon to say "We like Miley. She's a good girl!". 

Whether Miley would take that as the compliment it's meant if she heard it is difficult to say. If she happens to follow this blog (Hi, Miley, if you're reading!), I guess we might find out. There is a comment section, after all. I guess stranger things have probably happened, although not too many I can think of right now. 

I imagine she'd take it well, anyway. She seems to do just about everything well. She certainly sings well, something an increasing number of erstwhile skeptics seem to have noticed at last. She's been making something of a practice of covering other people's songs lately and doing it better than just about anyone. The comment threads that follow them on YouTube are full of backhanded compliments from aging rock fans who never thought she could do it but who at least have the grace to admit they were wrong.

It's a wide and surprising selection ranging from Pink Floyd to Hole to Dolly Parton. (That Doll Parts cover is stupendous, by the way). I really wanted to pull up the video but that will have to wait for another time because this isn't a post about Miley Cyrus and how amazing she is. 

Oh, sorry, is that what you thought was happening here? 

Nope. This is a post about the Velvet Underground song Sweet Jane. I saw Miley had covered it, brilliantly, and it made me remember a project I was planning, a long time ago.

Somewhere in the house where I live there's an audio cassette that must be around a quarter of a century old by now. On it are a bunch of covers of Sweet Jane. I started collecting them after I heard the Cowboy Junkies version, probably the most famous Sweet Jane cover of them all, and there are a lot, trust me.

It goes without saying it wasn't the first cover of Sweet Jane I'd heard. That would have been Mott the Hoople, who covered it magnificently on their 1972 album "All the Young Dudes". It's entirely possible that was the first version of the song I ever heard, period. I was listening to the Velvets before that but I took quite a while to get around to buying Loaded, the album on which the song first appeared.

I did buy Max's Kansas City early on, where Sweet Jane comes in at Side 1 Track 2, but that came out the same year as the Mott album and I'm fairly sure I already knew the song by then. And anyway, the version I really loved in those days didn't become widely available until two years later with the release of the sublime 1969.

Sweet Jane is a story song. Lou wrote a lot of those. I've seen it explained as everything from "a surreal look at the life of a rock star" to "correcting the misplaced notion among the "protest kids" that prior generations were trapped in society's shackles and that only the current generation knows how to live free of them." Yeah, right, that'll be it. I think this precis from Billboard probably gets it about right.

It has one of the best and most widely borrowed riffs in all rock. It comes from the very tail end of the period when the Velvets' operated with a languid, cowboy strut rather than the frenetic amphetamine yowl they're still somewhat famous for and it lopes along with a loose, louche grace. You can hear the perfect economy of the rhythm guitar part in this ten-minute take from Take No Prisoners, where the band vamps while Lou does his stand-up routine. I could listen to it on an infinite loop.

It's also an FM radio classic, or it became one after the fact, when the Velvet Underground name finally meant something. I'd wonder if that was the heritage all the many covers were drawing from if it wasn't that most these days include the glorious bridge that was left off the radio-friendly Loaded edit. Okay, that's not exactly how it happened but it might as well be.

What I'd been planning back then was a mixtape featuring nothing but versions of Sweet Jane. Those were the days of the cassette mixtape, as so fondly recalled in Belghast's excellent Mixtape Mondays series. I figured doing a whole tape with just one song on it would both amuse and annoy certain friends of mine. 

I never finished it. It was much, much harder to pan for gold in those pre-internet days. I just about managed enough versions for an actual album but C90s are two albums long, at least.

If I was doing it now I could fill one of those C90 five-packs I used to buy with nothing but Sweet Jane covers. There are so many! And some of them are even good! In fact, a lot of them are good. Sweet Jane is one of those magical songs that almost anyone can handle, unlike that other much-covered Velvets' classic, "Waiting for the Man", whose deceptively difficult pacing makes a fool of almost everyone rash enough to take it on.

Lou had his preferences. He later denied the Hunter-Wagner hard rock re-invention from the Rock 'n' Roll Animal album, so popular with seventies metalheads, even though it had been his idea in the first place and he was the one singing on it. I saw him with the Hunter-Wagner line-up, touring behind that album. He certainly seemed invested in it then. He worked with Mott on theirs, too, along with his pal David Bowie. They were both reportedly pleased with how those sessions worked out. 

Supposedly, he also liked the Brownsville Station version, something I find difficult to credit, having listened to it. It was one of the earlier covers by a major band (What, you don't remember Brownsville Station and "Smokin' in the Boys Room"? Yeah, well, you didn't miss much...) coming just a year after Mott, so maybe he just liked the attention. And the royalties. His favorite, according a number of interviews, was that Cowboy Junkies' slowdown and why wouldn't it be? 

In the end it's all a matter of re-interpretation and reinvention, isn't it? Who wants to hear someone do a song just like the record? If it's the original artist, well, you might as well just listen to the record, hadn't you? And if it's someone else and they manage to get it dead-on, well, it's one of those dogs walking on their hind legs deals. Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be... Lou Reed.

To cover a song is to live inside it. To turn it outside-in and wear it like a skin. Anything less is karaoke. Not that there's anything wrong with karaoke but it's not meant to outlast the moment. If you're going to put together a mixtape from nothing but versions of the same song, you're going to need a little more than that.

In the end, that's why I shelved the project. I listened back to what I had and it felt a little much even to me. The interpretations didn't differ sufficiently to keep the whole thing fresh. Of course, I didn't have the internet back then.

Even with the inexhaustible resources of the worldwide web I'm still not sure it would be a wise choice. It's one thing to put a bunch of links in a blog post and pick out some highlights for people to watch and enjoy at leisure, another to set up an actual playlist with thirty Sweet Janes in a row. Who'd listen to that? Plus, someone already did it, so it's not like it would even be original. 

I'll just stick to a handful, then. Some of my favorites and some of the stranger variations. Enough for a short album or a very long EP.

 

Wreckless Eric. I can scarcely believe I never heard this until yesterday, when I started doing the research for this post. I've been a fan since I first heard John Peel play Semaphore Signals in 1977 and I somehow managed to miss this until now. It's perfection.

Cowboy Junkies. The whole "slow it to a crawl" thing has become such a covers cliche now it's hard to remember how revolutionary this felt when I first heard it. I was mesmerized. I still am.

The Jim Carroll Band. If anyone was born to cover this it would have to be Jim Carroll. Like Jonathan Richman, he was there when it all went down the first time around. That's Jim's annoying voice you can hear on Max's Kansas City, asking if anyone's got any Tuinol. I imagine someone did.

Two Nice Girls. As I've mentioned, there was a time when I was taking flak for sporting a Joan Armatrading pin on my green safari jacket. The jacket itself was never a problem. There was no punk dress code in '76-77, that was yet to come and I was already gone when it came in, but apparently there were still lines you couldn't cross. Even at my height of admiration for Joan, though, it would never have occurred to me to cross Love and Affection with the Velvet Underground, but then I never was a nice girl.

Kate Nash. There was certainly a time when expressing anything other than contempt for Kate Nash would have gotten me much the same reaction but I've enjoyed everything I've heard by her, not that it's been all that much. She has a voice that comes ready heartbroken. This is a magical reinterpretation. I'd love to hear what Kate was thinking when she made it. I hear a lot of Laurie Anderson in there, which, if intentional, is genius and, if not, is even smarter than that.

 

Brother Ali and Chuck Prophet. If you ever thought what Sweet Jane really needed was a bald guy with a beard rapping through the middle of it then here's the cover you've been waiting for. The frame is the laid-back take you'd expect from Chuck Prophet, leader of one of my favorite underrated eighties bands, Green on Red. He says himself in the introduction he's operating somewhat out of his comfort zone and I think he's referring to having been bundled up with Brother Ali, probably at neither of their insistence. It kind of doesn't work - at all - but it's a curiosity for sure.

Annabel Lamb. I'm a sucker for dropouts. If Annabel had left much more out of this one there wouldn't have been anything left to leave in. The arrangements are so eighties but the vocals drip Berlin in the '30s. Disorienting.

 

Willie Nile. I'd like to say I'd saved the best for last but I really haven't. I have saved the most swaggering, blustering, overblown epic for the end of the show, though. It seemed appropriate. I get the feeling I'm supposed to know who Willie Nile is but I really don't. This has almost half a million views on YouTube, where there are clips of him performing with Springsteen, too. He seems to be one of those New York guys who just knows everyone but I'd never heard of him until today. Pretty sure I won't be hearing of him again, either.

And that's about enough Sweet Janes for one day, I think. If you only listen to one, make it Miley. If you want more, there must be another hundred or so on YouTube. I didn't watch them all. If you find a good one I missed, be sure and let me know.