Covered Up: Shearwater and Sharon Van Etten - "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around"

Shearwater & Sharon Van Etten – “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (Tom Petty & Stevie Nicks)

Record Store Day 7”, 2013

After listening to Shearwater’s “Rooks” for the last entry, I got Shearwater on the brain, so I might as well talk about how great their cover (with the impeccable Sharon Van Etten) of Tom Petty & Stevie Nicks’ “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” Shearwater abandon all the lovely, ornate elements of their usual sound for the ballsy swagger of Tom Petty and Van Etten takes a little sandpaper to her lovely vocal chords to affect a worthy, sultry Stevie Nicks tribute. Meiburg even tones down his melodramatic (I say that lovingly) quavering vocals to inject the song with a certain amount of testosterone that his vocals usually do not bring to the table. What I love about this cover is that it’s taken from the AV Club’s Undercover series, and I always thought they should compile those covers into a compilation every season because some are jawdroppingly perfect and I’ve discovered so many bands (via the performers and songs covered alike) that, goddamnit, they deserve a better audience than the AV Club can provide. This season they practically buried the Undercover series and I am particularly bothered by that. ANYWAY, this cover, fantastic. Off the cuff, raw as hell, and accurate and we can talk about Sharon Van Etten’s gravitas all damn day (I’ve put off writing about her latest—Are We There—because my love for that album grows a little more every time I hear it). The b-side features another collaboration between Shearwater and Van Etten in a lovely original—“A Wake for the Minotaur”—whose hushed glory captures the true sensibilities of both artists.

Covered Up: Harry Nilsson - "Many Rivers to Cross" (Pussy Cats)

Harry Nilsson – “Many Rivers to Cross” (Jimmy Cliff)
Pussy Cats, 1974

Jimmy Cliff’s gospel-tinged standout from the The Harder They Come soundtrack is a heartbreakingly gorgeous classic. Harry Nilsson’s cover serves as the lead-off track to Pussy Cats—his collaboration with John Lennon during his “Lost Weekend” period of serious drugs and drinking. As a result, that album sounds two guys having their own private party, and the way Nilsson belts out “Many Rivers to Cross” gives me chills every single time. The album also features covers of “Rock Around the Clock,” “Save the Last Dance for Me,” and a particularly wonderful and shambling rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Pussy Cats is an album I frequently recommend. It’s not really a masterpiece, or even a great, consistent record, but it so perfectly captures a time, a place, and a relationship of two men that I find it to be an enthralling listen. Plus it features the showstopping “Don’t Forget Me,” which is one of the greatest songs ever written, so there’s that. I always come back to that cover of “Many Rivers to Cross,” and while Cliff’s original is beautiful, all the blood and guts and pain Nilsson throws into his version makes it my favorite. The guitars sound stoned and reel around, but ultimately this feels like the last song they play before the lights go up and the bar closes together. Everyone standing arm and arm, drinks in hand, sloshing all over the place. Strangers becoming brothers. That's the power of song, man.

Covered Up: The Breeders - "Shocker in Gloomtown" (Guided by Voices)

The Breeders – “Shocker in Gloomtown” (Guided by Voices)

Head to Toe EP, 1994

I’m sure I’ll cover it later, but one of my favorite bits of indie rock lore is that Robert Pollard gifted Kim Deal the song “I Am Decided” as thanks for producing Guided by Voices’ Under the Bushes Under the Stars. She recorded and released it with the Amps on their sole LP Pacer. The fact that two indie rock heavyweights like Pollard and Deal both hail from Dayton, Ohio, is like some weird little miracle, and the music video for the Breeders cover of GBV’s “Shocker in Gloomtown” (released a mere year prior on The Grand Hour EP) is one of my favorite songs of all time. The original is great, but to GBV it’s just another box to check off the list. Deal & co swing for the goddamn fences and knock it straight out of the park. The Breeders bring an energy to the track that the original lacks, and I think maybe even GBV know this. The video is hilarious. The Breeders are Jamming out this sub-two-minute track in a garage in Dayton and GBV are outside peering through the windows. That’s the sort of shit that makes me giddy. “THEY KNOW EACH OTHER!” I say to myself. “THIS IS THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS.” This is one of those tracks you can play forever. It’s so short, and vacuum packed with dangerously condensed hooks, that the only better delivery vehicle I can think of other than headphones is a pure injection of pop bliss right into my heart like a needle full of adrenaline. Just pipe that shit in all day, I don’t care if I eventually go insane. The Breeders version was produced by J. Mascis, which is another thing that makes brain hurt with joy. If you haven’t heard this song before and you’re about to listen to it for the first time, you’re welcome, and I’m sorry. Because you now know no one kicks more ass than the Breeders.

I don't mean to slag GBV's original, but it's like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah": A great song perfected by someone else. No shame in that, none whatsoever. Still a fucking jam and when I saw them play it live I immediately ordered a $7 Miller Light from the dude walking through the crowd with a cooler and raised that cheap beer to the sky in tribute. 

Covered Up: Neko Case - "Madonna of the Wasps" (Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians)

Neko Case – “Madonna of the Wasps” (Robyn Hitchcock)
The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You B-Side, 2013

There was a time, five or six years ago, where I was an absolute nut for Robyn Hitchcock’s Fegmania!. I think it had something to do with Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy citing Hitchcock as an influence. I played a track from that album every week for a semester on KJHK. “Another Bubble,” “My Wife & My Dead Wife,” “I’m Only You,” actually, the whole first side of that album was on rotation. Despite my devotion to that record, I never picked up another Hitchcock album, which seems totally insane. Leave it to a fantastic cover to reopen the door to Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians. I didn’t know “Madonna of the Wasps” was a cover when I first listened to the b-sides from Neko Case’s latest album The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, and that’s probably a good thing. Her rendition of my favorite Harry Nilsson track—“Don’t Forget Me,” featured on Middle Cyclone—was a huge disappointment. This one, however, is just so wonderful. Without even listening to the original, I can hear Case and the band channeling the jangly guitars and wobbly synthesizers of the late 80s. M. Ward provides soulful counter vocals that play so well with Case’s, which is no surprise since their vocal interplay on The Worse Things Get… is one of the myriad elements that make that album a masterpiece.

Listening to the original for the first time was like meeting up with an old friend after years of separation. Hitchcock’s buttery, yet lightly idiosyncratic vocals, and those beautiful jangly 80s guitar tones are pure magic. It’s just flabbergasting that I didn’t think to rip Hitchcock’s entire catalog when I was at KJ. It was all there on the shelf, even Queen Elvis, from which “Madonna of the Wasps” is culled. Beautiful, slightly dark, but cut through with that shimmering riff and infinitely replayable with its three-minute running time that feels way too short. Three-minutes is the perfect length for a song, and I’ve wasted so many words railing against bands who feel the need to repeat the same verses and choruses over and over again, but I could listen to this track forever.

Covered Up: The Mountain Goats - "Pet Politics" (Silver Jews)

The Mountain Goats – “Pet Politics” (Silver Jews)

The Believer Music Issue, 2005

Take a band I already love and adore (The Mountain Goats) and have them cover a band I’ve heard of, but never given a chance because the recordings I heard sounded like garbage (Silver Jews’ The Arizona Record) and you basically have indie rock alchemy. “Pet Politics” makes you stop whatever you’re doing and listen to David Berman’s poetry. Even through the conduit of John Darnielle, the apocalyptic essence of this song remains intact. I immediately got TheNatural Bridge and its follow-up, AmericanWater, but it was the latter that blew my mind. Just broke it wide open and showed me the beautiful mind of America’s best contemporary songwriter. Ever since I could appreciate music, I’ve been chasing the feeling that comes with discovering a band that you’re going to carry with you the rest of your life. This cover is good, but there’s a weight that Berman brings to the original that just can’t be replaced by anyone.

Silver Jews - "Pet Politics"
 

Covered Up: Julia Holter - "Don't Make Me Over"

Julia Holter – “Don’t Make Me Over” (Dionne Warwick)

Domino, 2014

Julia Holter’s most recent albums—2012’s Ekstasis and 2013’s Loud City Song—are what gets classified as “bedtime music” in my brain. Both are fascinating, inventive works that can hold their own against the experimental vocal pop of Bjork, Kate Bush, and Laurie Anderson; but I am a broken man. I am too impatient to seriously sit and listen to record that need to be seriously sat and listened to. Loud City Song has so much going for it! Not only does it feel like a a scintillating blend of the three above mentioned artists, but there is an obvious vitality surging through that record. It took a cover song to understand that, as is often the case. I have discovered (or come to understand) so many artists based on covers they’ve performed or other bands covering their songs. Julia Holter’s cover of the Dionne Warwick classic “Don’t Make Me Over” is a sleepy showstopper. You can hear every single syllable rolling off her tongue, and in her voice you can hear the entire history of female vocal pop music unfolding. There’s an obvious adoration of 60s R&B (also evidenced by the b-side and Loud City Song album track, the Barbara Lewis cover “Hello Stranger”) but you can hear shades of Nico and Dusty Springfield too. Like any great cover, Holter’s spare rendition of “Don’t Make Me Over” preserves the essence of the original while putting her own stamp on it.

Here's Dionne Warwick's original, penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.