Caught in a Trap
Photo: Sam Saunders via Wikimedia Commons
Everyone has their favourite cover version, right? Maybe Sinead O'Connor’s sublime interpretation of Prince’s 'Nothing Compares 2 U'. Or Joe Cocker’s explosive cover of the Beatles’ 'With a Little Help from My Friends'.
The point is that the artist has transformed the original. By changing the tempo, the lyrics, the arrangement, even the genre, they’ve made it their own. Put their stamp on it. Breathed new life into it.
Friends will know that, as an old jazz fan, one of my favourite covers is John Coltrane’s modal re-imagining of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic show tune ‘My Favorite Things’, from The Sound of Music. It’s breath-taking in its originality and transformed the very structure of the song.
The sound of Salford
But for sheer weirdness, I reckon one of the great covers has to be The Fall’s magnificent version of Sister Sledge’s ‘Lost in Music’. The original, released in 1979, is an undeniable disco classic. And the intoxicating escapism of the song still resonates today.
But the audacity of Mark E. Smith’s reinvention of this heady dance anthem takes it to a whole new level.
Released in 1993, Smith played fast and loose with the lyrics, dropping key lines, introducing new ones about money on the table and pub refurbishment. And deploying some seriously dodgy French.
There’s even an ironic reference to the Romantic poet William Blake: "The palace of excess leads to the palace of access", echoing Blake’s line "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom".
Re-hearing the past
Smith’s lyrics often lend themselves to multiple interpretations. But there’s no mistaking here his subversion of the happy disco vibe of the original. Deploying sound effects, yelps and sardonic humour to steer listeners to a darker understanding of the reality of being in a band, scuffling for a living.
There’s a sinister edge to this cover. And using the infectious rhythm of the Sister Sledge classic to make a point about the apolitical hedonism of the early 1990s rave generation is genius.
Mark E. Smith was the archetypally irascible cult hero. He said once, “We’re living in a re-issue world, filching from the past like magpies with a Tardis.” I think it’s fair to say he never fell into that trap. Instead, he provided us with a way of re-discovering a great original song in a new form. A quintessential cover.
Lost in music, indeed!