I have had two successive discussions about doing cover songs recently. The first was with my songwriter’s circle and the second was with myself as I listened to Roseanne Cash talk about her new CD “The List” on NPR’s Fresh Air. Each time I have been confronted with how difficult it is to do a cover song right. There are a lot of bands/performers that cover a song just to have it in their songbook as filler for their second set and then there are artists that cover songs because they want to perform a great song.
The discussion I had with my Songwriter’s Circle was centered around how we can take a cover and transform it. The song that we were tossing about was AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”. That hard rockin’ song is difficult to do on acoustic guitar and have it sound like AC/DC. Well then, that’s the point: don’t allow it to sound like AC/DC. So we played it slower and with a bluegrass edge to it and man did it sound great! All of a sudden I started to really hear the lyrics and feel the intent of the song.
The discussion I had with myself as I listened to Roseanne Cash involved honesty and soul. If you’re going to sing classic country songs that everyone knows, then you had better understand your reason for singing it. How are you, the singer, going to make an audience hear this song differently from the way we are used to hearing it? Do you really understand the lyrics and can you convey the meaning to an audience that may understand them a totally different way.
I have a few covers in my working songbook that I take out every once in a while. The latest song I’ve added is “One” by U2 and I am struggling with it. First of all how do I make it mine? How do I change it up with out ruining a beautiful melody and lyric? And how do I make it travel from the first line to the last line like Bono does? And – how do I create atmosphere with my acoustic guitar the way The Edge does with his electric and a lot of delay?
In my head I had a picture of Tom Waits doing this song. What would he do? Slow it down? Be more accusatory in his tone? Speak some of the lines? I tried to approach it from this angle. I also have a lower voice than Bono does so I couldn’t do the vocal calisthenics that he does and that gave me another indication that I should think of Waits.
The more times I sung the lyrics the more I felt the real anger that was hidden between the lines. Even though Bono sings this in a ballad style, I felt that there needed to be some punch to a few of the lines so that the person being sung to (and about) really gets hit in the face with the words.
I’m still working on this One, but check out the video of me and let me know what you think. I take the covers I do very seriously and I try to find a balance between original interpretation and keeping true to the writer’s intent.
Peace
~Darryl
(You can check out the video to this cover at The Weekly Drip – my creativity blog)
