Covers can go one of two ways. They can be very good or very bad. Sometimes they are just ok. Three ways then. But any which way, it can be a risky business to cover songs, especially if the song is one of those ones deemed 'untouchable', you know, one of the classics that your parents or uncles say was like the best song ever (as if 50 years more experience in music production and 50 years of pop music history for artists emerging now wasn't enough to make them, in some cases, a lot better than anything that could've come before).
The most exciting kinds of covers stay true to the original, whilst adding their own touch of magic that makes their original work shine. I ain't talking about like, a punk cover of a folk song or vice versa, but more a rerendering of the song. Not sure if rerender will catch on but... whatever, I'm lost now.
In any case the allure of covering - or rerendering - did not escape Lana Del Rey (real name Elizabeth Grant - well I never). She has covered a beautiful song called 'Summer Wine'. Dunno how old or new this is but it's newww to moi. Originally it was done by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood in 1967 - it's a moody, thunderous song that has a certain quality that would be difficult to emulate. Listen to the original here.
In Lana's case, she's not emulated the track but made it her own. Now all that stuff I said about rerendering sounds silly. Gah - whatevvz. Have a listen below to her glittering version.
Who's that man? It's Lana's boyfriend (maybe fiancé?), Barrie James-O'Neill, of course. And a voice that comes straight out of 'the old days', very similar in style - in that way - to Lana's actually. But speaking of whom, doesn't she just kill this track? In a good way yo. Kills it. It's a bad epithet, I'm sorry - let's go with... revitalises. Yeah, that's what she does, she revitalises this song completely. Her voice works wonders, always with a touch of something stormy fluttering within it, and the music is perfect - a jazzed up version of the 1967 'Summer Wine', basically, but one that oozes with all the feel of the original without damaging it in the slightest.
Lovely. Oh and the video is a nice touch too; fits. (Soz this is a MUSIC blog after all.)
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