Not quite covers, but..
Seeing as we’re not just here to hype artists in themselves, I thought I’d try something a little different today. We have a collection of song ‘reimaginings’ (if it’s good enough for Planet Of The Apes..) for your enjoyment. These aren’t covers in the strictest sense. While I suppose they technically are, I wouldn’t tend to count an artist covering their own material as a cover. Instead, these are songs where artists have taken an original song of theirs and changed it completely, whether in a lyrical sense or a musical one.
First up we have Belle and Sebastian, who first gave me the idea to do a post like this with their double bill across two EPs, A Century Of Elvis and A Century Of Fakers. Both songs are massively different from each other. A Century Of Elvis is a spoken word surrealist story, while A Century Of Fakers is a more traditional B&S song using the same backing track. Both songs are excellent in their own right, and you get to play the fun game of trying to work out who ‘Elvis’ is. The actual singer or just a cat?
MP3 Belle & Sebastian – A Century Of Elvis (expired) (from Lazy Line Painter Jane EP, 1997)
MP3 Belle & Sebastian – A Century Of Fakers (expired) (from 3.. 6.. 9 Seconds Of Light EP, 1997)
I have to confess that despite having Stability for years, I didn’t even notice that Stable Song on Death Cab’s 2005 Plans album was exactly the same song, just reduced considerably in length and with a re-recorded vocal track. Personally I prefer the Plans version all round as I find that at over twelve minutes, Stability just starts to grate with me, whereas Stable Song is far more concise and to the point.
MP3 Death Cab For Cutie – Stability (expired) (from Stability EP, 2002)
MP3 Death Cab For Cutie – Stable Song (expired) (from Plans, 2005)
Pavement took their epic, relaxed Type Slowly and turned it into an upbeat country ditty called Slowly Typed. Their new version isn’t entirely serious, the lyrics are mangled and it sounds pretty rough, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.
MP3 Pavement – Type Slowly (expired) (from Brighten The Corners, 1997)
MP3 Pavement – Slowly Typed (expired) (from Shady Lane EP, 1997)
Finally, we have The Rakes, who took their excellent cold war espionage number Strasbourg and turned it into a much simpler, but no less brilliant, song about meeting a girl in a kebab shop in Watford. The music remains the same, the lyrics give an entirely different story. Both are certainly worth your time.
MP3 The Rakes – Strasbourg (expired) (from Capture/Release, 2005)
MP3 The Rakes – Watford (expired) (from All Too Human single, 2006)
I had trouble coming up with examples of this kind of thing for this post, and I think these are the only four that I have. I’m sure other bands must have done a similar thing in the past, I just have no idea who they are. A ton more will probably come to me five minutes after I post this, but no matter.
“With this show, I wanted people to laugh and cry… and shit themselves all at the same time.” – Garth Marenghi
Lastly, I bring news that we finally have proof that there is a god. At least one of DVD releases anyway. After having given up all hope of it ever seeing the light of day, the awesomeness that was Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is finally being released on DVD on June 12. If you never caught the masterwork when it first aired on Channel 4 in 2004, you’ve really been missing out, but now there really is no excuse. Darkplace is essentially a spoof of Stephen King, poorly made horror films and anything else that gets in it’s way. It’s also one of the funniest things that I have ever seen. Do yourself a favour and get hold of a copy of it. You won’t be disappointed. Unless you have no sense of humour.
Beta Band did a similar thing with their song “Liquid Bird” by doing a folky banjo cover of it called “Country Bird” complete with a video of them dressed like rednecks and doing a lil gig somewhere in the Scottish countryside.
[...] Go check it out and download all the examples. I recommended The Rakes reinterpretation of Strasbourg becoming the superb “Watford”!–You Aint No Picasso has a new home.–Shane @ The Torture Garden has done a series of excellent posts on “Irish music for Foreigners” and also posts some excellent (and rare) tunage by the Pipettes and the Rakes in the latest round of updates. [...]
[...] MP3 Neutral Milk Hotel – Love Me On A Tuesday (from Yoyo A Go Go ‘94 compilation, 1994) MP3 Neutral Milk Hotel – Tuesday Moon (Unreleased.. I think. Correct me if I’m wrong) Finally, kudos to Neutral Milk Hotel for seemingly being the only band to really get behind tuesday, by making not one, but two songs, involving the day. Granted the songs are basically the same, using the same lyrics but reworking the music entirely. Which means they would have fitted perfectly on my post of bands covering themselves, but I didn’t have both of these back then. ‘Love Me On A Tuesday’ is a great little (literally given it’s 1:55 long) rock song, soaked in distortion. The fact the lyrics are pretty much indecipherable on the most part doesn’t really matter given how good it sounds. Get past the weird introduction of two kids talking on ‘Tuesday Moon’ and you’ll find another little gem, where you’ll actually be able to hear the words! Which means we can actually hear just how nice these songs happen to be. [...]