Better Than the Original: On the Joy of Cover Versions

Alien Ant Farm lead vocalist Dryden Mitchell and Bubbles lookalike in the video 

for their 2001 version of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal' (1988)

 

 

I. 

 

If there's one thing I like, it's a great cover version; that is to say, a new interpretation of a song which exposes the fallacy that the original recording, or one closely associated with a well-known artist, is always the best. 

 

The fact is, there is no definitive version of a song and, in as much as a song is usually written before it is ever performed or recorded, all versions are essentially covers. 

 

Even the songwriter or composer, cannot claim to exercise complete control or final authority over his work; la mort de l'auteur isn't just a phenomenon within the world of literature, you know (or, at any rate, certainly deserves to be extended into other areas, including popular music, where - even in a post-punk environment - too much reverence is paid to the artist and they still unironically hang a star on their dressing room door).  

 

And so, just as the singer must release the song from the page on which it's written, so must the listener also liberate the song from the recording and refuse any limit upon how they hear or understand it. The magic and the meaning of a song depends on the impressions of the listener, rather than the passion of the performer, or the intentions of the songwriter.

 

Anyhoo, having briefly set out my theoretical reasons for loving cover versions, I'd like now to discuss what makes a great cover version ...

 

 

II.    

 

Having selected an old song that one wishes to cover, it's important to remember that one isn't merely obliged to rework or reinterpret it; one must also find a way to update the song so that it sounds fresh and contemporary. Avoiding what Barthes calls the mere stereotype of novelty, one must make New (which is another way of saying make sexy).  

 

And whilst it's respectful to give a nod in some manner to the artist one is covering, one must not remain unduly faithful; high-fidelity is undesirable and one doesn't want to be seen simply as a tribute act and a cover needs to be more than a cheap imitation or the next best thing compared to the original. Ultimately, as Neil Tennant once said: the cover has got to sound like you [1]. 

 

It also needs to be aimed at a different (and possibly a wider) audience than the (so-called) original. Forget about crowd-pleasing.      

 

 

III.

 

It only remains for me now to provide some examples of great cover versions - or, at any rate, cover songs which I happen to like ... 

 

Initially, I was going to provide a list or, if you like, a chart. But then a top ten became a top twenty and a top twenty a top forty ... And so, rather than do this, I've decided to simply mention several of my favourite cover versions and discuss one of these in detail.

 

Let's begin with two songs that I have already written posts on: 'My Way' by Sid Vicious, released as a single by the Sex Pistols in 1978 [2], and 'Common People' by William Shatner, on the album Has Been (2004). Both of these tracks are perfect cover versions: as I explain here and here.

The next track I'd like to mention is Serge Gainsbourg's amusing version of 'Smoke Gets In You Eyes', on the album Rock Around the Bunker (1975), which contained songs relating to the Third Reich and which drew upon Gainsbourg's experiences as a Jewish child in Nazi occupied France. 

 

Along with nine original songs, Gainsbourg included this cover of 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes', written by Otto Harbach and Jerome Kern the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta, because it was said to be one of Eva Braun's favourites. Click here to play.   

Speaking of French singers ... I would like to also give a shout out to Marie Laforêt and her 1966 version of the Rolling Stones' hit 'Paint It Black' - retitled as 'Marie-douceur, Marie-colère' - click here. As the song is also given completely new lyrics, it's arguably a different work altogether - though the tune's the same [3].

 

Then there's Siouxsie and the Banshees working their alchemy with the Beatles track 'Dear Pudence', released as a single in 1983 [4]. It would be the band's biggest UK hit, reaching number 3 in the charts (much to their surprise). What amuses me is the manner in which they add a sense of darkness and menace to the original hippie vibe (despite the sunny blue skies). Click here to play.  

 

Finally, there's arguably the greatest of all covers: Alien Ant Farm's punky nu-metal version of 'Smooth Criminal' by Michael Jackson, released as a single from the album Anthology (2001): click here. 

 

This track only got to number 3 in the UK, but was a huge number 1 smash in the US. Like Sid's version of 'My Way' and Shatner's cover of Pulp's 'Common People', it is just perfect - as is the video directed by Marc Klasfeld, which references numerous Jackson music videos.  

 

The fact that I love it - even though I'm not a Michael Jackson fan - is not the point; the point is that MJ also loved it and so do many of his fans and those who might be wary of white artists coming along and messing with the work of a legendary black performer - as many so-called reaction videos on YouTube make clear [5].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Neil Tennant, vocalist with the synth-pop duo the Pet Shop Boys, knows a thing or two about producing a great cover; his 1987 version with Chris Lowe of the song made famous by Elvis in 1972 - 'You Are Always on My Mind' - is often said to be the greatest cover version ever (which it isn't, but it certainly deserves a mention, and a listen: click here to see them performing it on Top of the Pops). 

[2] Somewhat ironically, the Sex Pistols were rather good at covering other people's songs; click here for their take on 'No Fun', by the Stooges (originally the 'B' side of 'Pretty Vacant' (1977), but this is the remastered version from the 35th anniversary edition of Never Mind the Bollocks (2012)); and click here for their version of '(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone', made famous by the Monkees, as found on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979).    

 

[3] A 1983 cover of 'Paint It Black' by the American punk band the Avengers, which I also like very much, is rather closer to the original: click here. 

[4] Siouxsie and the Banshees had previously covered another Beatle's track from the White Album (1968) - 'Helter Skelter' - which can be found on their debut album Thev Scream (1978): click here. 

[5] See for example this reaction by Jamel_AKA_Jamal, or this one from Rob Squad Reactions. 

Loony Tunes

Clockwise from top left: 

Haywire Mac / Napoleon XIV / Jaz Coleman / Siouxsie Sioux

 

 

There are almost as many songs about being mad or going insane as there are about falling in love; so many in fact, that attempting to compile a full and definitive list of such would probably drive you crazy. This, therefore, is simply a short post in which I discuss a few of my favourite songs on the subject. 

 

I'm not saying they're the best four songs ever recorded to do with madness, but they are the ones that have most struck a chord with me. Note that they're arranged by release date and not in order of preference.

 

 

'Aint We Crazy?' by Harry McClintock (aka Haywire Mac) (Victor, 1928): click here to play.

 

"Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy / This is the way we pass the time away  

Ain't we crazy, ain't we crazy / We're going to sing this song all night today."

 

Malcolm McLaren dedicated his 1983 album Duck Rock to Haywire Mac and insisted that I get hold of Hallelujah! I'm a Bum, (Rounder Records, 1981), a remastered compilation of some of McClintock's greatest songs - including 'Ain't We Crazy?' and 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain', for which he is probably best remembered today [1].

 

'Ain't We Crazy?' is a type of nonsense song, in which the singer is the kind of anti-Socratic hero whom Roland Barthes celebrates; i.e., a figure who abolishes within himself all fear of being branded a madman via an amusing disregard for that old spectre: logical contradiction [2]:

 

It was midnight on the ocean, not a streetcar was in sight 

And the sun was shining brightly, for it rained all day that night 

'Twas a summer night in winter, and the rain was snowing fast

And a barefoot boy with shoes on stood a-sitting in the grass.

 

Such a man, as Barthes says, would be the mockery of our society, which subscribes to a psychology of consistency and says firmly that you can't have your cake and eat it. 

 

 

'They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!', single by Napoleon XIV (Warner Bros. Records, 1966): click here to play.

 

"They're coming to take me away, ha-ha! / They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha! 

To the funny farm / Where life is beautiful all the time ..."

 

Written and performed by Jerry Samuels (aka Napoleon XIV), this curious record was an instant smash in the US and UK and I loved to sing it to amuse myself and entertain friends as a child [3].

 

However, I very much doubt it would be made, released, or played today, living as we are in an era that is far more sensitive to issues surrounding mental health. Indeed, even at the time several radio stations stopped playing the song in response to complaints about its content. Predictably, the BBC also refused to play the record.  

The joke reveal at the end of the song is that it is not a departed lover who has caused the song's narrator to lose his mind, but a runaway dog ... 

 

 

'Happy House', by Siouxsie and the Banshees, single release from the album Kaleidoscope (Polydor, 1980): click here to play.

 

"This is the happy house / We're happy here in the happy house [...] 

It's safe and calm if you sing along ..." 

 

I was never a big Banshees fan, but I used to love to hear this song on the radio back in the day and as it was a Top 20 hit - peaking at number 17 in the UK Singles Chart - one heard it fairly often.    

 

I assumed at the time that the title was a synonym for an insane asylum - like funny farm, or loony bin - but later read in an interview with Siouxsie - who wrote the song with Steve Severin [4] - that, actually, it refers to a conventional family setting; to home, sweet home and the madness that unfolds therein beneath the veneer of normality and domestic bliss. 

 

It's interesting to note that the follow-up single, 'Christine' (released in May 1980 and also taken from Kaleidoscope), again dealt with the theme of madness; the lyrics being inspired by the story of a woman who reportedly had 22 different (often conflicting) personalities [5] - which explains why she is referred to in the song as a banana split lady (i.e., it has nothing to do with her having a sweet tooth).

 

 

'Madness', by Killing Joke, track 6 on the album What's THIS For ...! (E. G. / Polydor Records, 1981): click here to play the 2005 digitally remastered version.  

 

"This is madness / This is madness / This is madness / This is madness / This is madness ..." 

 

This track, despite the title, isn't actually about madness in general, but, rather, about Christianity as a very specific form of religious mania; the product of sick minds in which there is a need to believe in a dead God and life itself is interpreted as a sin. 

 

It is, if I'm honest, quite a challenging listen and will appeal only to a few. But then, as Nietzsche might say, to appreciate this track, the listener must be honest to the point of hardness so as to be able to endure the seriousness and intensity of Jaz Coleman's passion [6].

 

Th-th-th-th-that's all folks! [7]

Notes

 

[1] One of the very earliest posts on Torpedo the Ark - 5 May 2013 - was on Haywire Mac and his hobo vision of an earthly paradise (i.e., the Big Rock Candy Mountain): click here. 

 

[2] See Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, trans. Richard Miller, (Hill and Wang, 1998), p. 3.

 

[3] The song was re-released in 1973, when I was ten-years-old, and that's probably when I remember it from - not 1966, when I was still singing nursery rhymes. However, I was a fan of at least one pop song released in that year; 'Yellow Submarine' by the Beatles.

 

[4] Guitarist John McGeoch (previously of Magazine) and drummer Budgie (previously of the Slits) also play no small part in creating the distinctive and atmospheric (post-punk) sound that makes this track so unforgettable.

 

[5] Christine Sizemore (née Costner) was an American woman who, in the 1950s, was diagnosed with what was then termed multiple personality disorder, but which is now known as dissociative identity disorder. Her case was depicted in the book The Three Faces of Eve (1957), written by her psychiatrists, Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley. The film of the that name, directed by Nunally Johnson and starring Joanne Woodward, was based on this work. Readers interested in hearing the track 'Christine', by Siouxsie and the Banshees, can click here. 

 

[6] I'm paraphrasing from Nietzsche's Preface to The Anti-Christ (1888).

 

[7] I have borrowed this closing phrase and title for the post from the animated short film series produced by Warner Bros. between the years 1930 and 1969, starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, et al. 

      Readers might be interested to know that the famous Loony Tunes theme was actually based on a crazy-sounding love song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin entitled 'The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down': click here for the version by the American jazz pianist and bandleader Eddy Duchin, with Lew Sherwood on vocals. And for an additional treat, courtesy of Larry David, click here.

 

The Bats Have Left the Bell Tower: Reflections on Graveyard Poetry and Post-Punk Goth

Love Among the Gravestones (1981) 

Photo by Kirk Field

 

 

La Rochefoucauld famously suggested that people never would have fallen in love if they hadn’t first learnt about it in works of art. And one wonders if something similar might also be said of the morbid and sometimes macabre fascination that many young lovers have for skulls, coffins, epitaphs and worms, i.e., all the trappings and paraphernalia of death. 

 

Would, for example, the two teens pictured above have spent so much time smooching in cemeteries were it not for the influence of the Graveyard Poets upon the erotic imagination?

 

It's doubtful. 

 

For whilst their post-punk queer gothic sensibility was primarily shaped by Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Sex Gang Children - along with numerous other bands from this period (early-1980s) - we can trace their love of the uncanny and the occult all the way back to these 18th-century poets, whose mournful meditations on mortality and the love that tears us apart foreshadowed the work of songwriters like Ian Curtis and Nick Cave.   

 

There is - perhaps not surprisingly - much debate within critical circles about what constitutes a graveyard poem and about which authors should be classified as belonging to the Graveyard school (and it might be noted that the term itself was not used to refer to a style of writer and their work until coined by a literary scholar in 1893). 

 

What we can say, however, is that the following four poems remain crucial to our understanding of it:

 

Night Piece on Death (1722) - Thomas Parnell

Night-Thoughts (1742-45) - Edward Young

The Grave (1743) - Robert Blair

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard  (1751) - Thomas Gray

Obviously, none of these works have the pop brilliance of songs by the above bands and artists, but readers who are interested in melancholic 18th-century poetry to do with life, death, ghosts and graveyards should certainly check them out. 

 

Be prepared, however, for a tedious amount of Christian moralising; for it's an unfortunate fact that didacticism and piety often detract from the delicious decadence and horror of these works.    

 

 

Musical bonus: Public Image Ltd., 'Graveyard', from the album Metal Box, (Virgin, 1979): click here.

 

 

Punk Xmas

'Tis the season to be Johnny 

(Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la)

I.

For all its professed anarcho-nihilism and counter-cultural posturing, punk quickly revealed itself to be all too human when the festive season rolled round, with many bands embracing the cynical-sentimental showbiz tradition of releasing Christmas songs. 

Now, whilst punk intellectuals such as Craig O'Hara and Gerfried Ambrosch* might think it terribly subversive for Stiff Little Fingers to release a raucous live rendition of White Christmas, or that by performing Silent Night at a million miles an hour the Dickies caused Franz Gruber to start spinning in his grave, I do not.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how hard you pogo around the Christmas tree, you're not reclaiming the happy holiday as a pagan tradition or deconstructing moral idealism, you are - in the words of Paul McCartney - simply having a wonderful Christmastime (ding-dong, ding-dong, ding). 

That doesn't make you a collaborator, or a sell out.

But it does mean you perhaps have rather more in common with everyone else than you might otherwise wish to acknowledge and that your romantic rebellion - against cliché, dreary convention, and commercialism - is born of the fact that you care a great deal (punk indifference being merely another pose).**

II.

So what, then, are the best punk Xmas songs?

That's hard to say, as, to be honest, they're all pretty awful, with one or two exceptions, such as Fairytale of New York (1987), by the Pogues, ft. Kirsty MacColl, and Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight) (1987), by the Ramones - though I'm not overly keen on either.

I do quite like Siouxsie and the Banshees' version of the traditional French Christmas carol Il est né, le divin Enfant (1982), but, ultimately, my tastes take me back towards the two tunes previously mentioned, by SLF and the Dickies: White Christmas (1980) and Silent Night (1978).

And finally, let's not forget the Thin Lizzy/Sex Pistols collaboration (as the Greedies); A Merry Jingle (1979): click here to watch their performance on Top of the Pops (20-12-79), or here, as they close the New Year's edition of The Kenny Everett Television Show, in another time and in a different world ... 

Notes

* Craig O'Hara, The Philosophy of Punk, (AK Press, revised 2nd edition, 2000); Gerfried Ambrosch, The Poetry of Punk, (Routledge, 2018).
 
** Obviously, when I say punks care, I don't mean about the baby Jesus, but about the authenticity of experience; they so want things to be meaningful and honest and real - including the joy of Christmas. 

To relive Christmas '77 with the Sex Pistols, see the BBC Four documentary directed by Julien Temple, (2013): click here.

Melt: On the Transubstantiation of Love

Cover art for the single 'Melt!' by

Siouxsie and the Banshees 

(Polydor, 1982) 

"Are you familiar with the frightening sensation of melting", asks Cioran; "the feeling of dissolving into a flowing river, in which the self is annulled by organic liquidization?" 

Well, as a matter of fact, thanks to the British post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, I am ... 

The lovely song 'Melt!', released as a single from their fifth studio album, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, gave an interesting - some might say psychedelic - insight into the phenomenon way back in 1982.

The lyrics betray a decadent and delirious fascination with sex and death and some of the images have fetishistic overtones; the melting lover is handcuffed in lace, blood and sperm, before eventually being beheaded.        

Whilst it's tempting and certainly wouldn't be mistaken to discuss the song in relation to Baudelaire and Masoch - or the sleeve art with reference to Klimt - I think it just as legitimate (and in some ways more interesting) to refer to Cioran's astonishing first book, On the Heights of Despair (1934).

(Don't get me wrong: I love Flowers of Evil and Venus in Furs as much as the next man, but so much has already been written about these texts, that it's hard to offer any further insight. Cioran's work, on the other hand, is shamefully underdiscussed and undervalued. Indeed, much of it is hardly known in the English-speaking world, even by people who thrill to similar authors, such as Bataille and Blanchot, for example.)    

Like the Banshees, Cioran eroticises the notion of melting, or what Barthes would describe as the body's liquid expansion and include crying as well as ejaculating. For love, writes Cioran, "is a form of intimate communion and nothing expresses it better than the subjective impression of melting, the falling away of all barriers of individuation".   

Although he seems to regard sex as marginal to the irrationality of love, Cioran concedes that you cannot conceive of the latter without the former and insists that there's no spiritual love between the sexes; "only a transfiguration of the flesh" via which lovers identify themselves so intensely with one another that they create an illusion of spirituality.

Only at this point does the sensation of melting occur: "the flesh trembles in a supreme spasm, ceases resistance, burning with inner fires, melting and flowing, unstoppable lava". In other words, it's a form of suicide in sex, as Siouxsie sings.

Notes

See: E. M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair, trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston, (The University of Chicago Press, 1992). I'm quoting from sections entitled 'Weariness and Agony' and 'On the Transubstantiation of Love', pp. 16-17 and 84. 

Play: Siouxsie and the Banshees, 'Melt!', from the album A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (Polydor, 1982): click here.

This post is in (mostly) fond memory of Gillian Hall.

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace

Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace (front cover photo)

The rapid evolution of popular music and youth culture in the wake of punk continues to fascinate many commentators, including some who weren't even born in the wildly exciting and experimental period between 1979 and 1984.

Despite their non-being during this era, Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje have lovingly assembled a visual and written record of the time when some wore leather, some wore lace, but all of us - with a greater or lesser degree of success - wore eyeliner and adopted a somewhat gothic sensibility (transforming from punks to pagans and swapping safety pins for magical amulets).

Why things mutated in the manner they did - why kids who started off pogoing at the 100 Club ended  up posing at the Batcave - is a question that the above authors don't really address in a book which, although rich in photos, is disappointingly light on theory. But it's not one I pretend to know the answer to either.

I've heard it suggested, however, that the nihilistic energy and almost childlike joy in destruction of punk was not only impossible to sustain, but quickly became emotionally unsatisfying for those sensitive and creative individuals interested in developing a more sophisticated and glamourous aesthetic that would allow them to express feelings other than anger, boredom and hatred.

I suspect there's something in this argument.  At any rate, better Siouxsie and the Banshees than Sham 69 ...        

See: Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s (Intellect, 2014), by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje. 

Note: those who are interested in knowing more about the above authors and their work should visit the Postpunk Project by clicking here.