Some Songs Considered

“Beautiful Girls” – Deer Tick
(Words/music: Kisean Anderson, Sly Jordan, Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, Jonathan Rotem, Michael Stoller, non-album track - download at Brooklyn Vegan)

I saw Deer Tick open up for Jenny Lewis back in the fall and I was impressed with them as a live band – I had heard a couple songs prior but it never really latched onto me.  Live, however, they were a far more engaging band, letting their songs spring to life, giving these part surf-rock, part punk rock, part country songs the necessary emphasis to make them interesting.  They also closed with a rollicking cover of “La Bamba” that worked as a perfect summary of their opening set for a crowd that (mostly) didn’t know the band.  I went home with a copy of War Elephant that night and listened to their songs with a new set of ears.  The second time around, I found John McCauley’s songs far more interesting, getting deeper into the arrangements and his clever lyrics.  Their new album Born on Flag Day comes out at the end of June and while it’s not going to make them household names, a lot more people will take notice as word gets around.  (You can hear some of their songs on their Myspace page or on their Muxtape page)

I hesitate to post a cover song by a (largely) unknown band, but I think their version of Sean Kingston’s interpolation of “Stand by Me” showcases a lot of the wonderful qualities that made Deer Tick a compelling live band.  Instrumentally, they turn the song into a bouncy alt-country tune, complete with steel guitar and sizzling cymbals.  Specifically, the bass sound is phenomenal, doing justice to that distinctive bassline from “Stand by Me.” McCauley playfully sings Kingston’s tale of teenage heartbreak with playfulness rather than irony, a significant factor in the track’s success.  While some bands might plow through it as a tongue-in-cheek bubblegum punk song, Deer Tick play to its strengths and has fun with the song, including a lyrical nod to “Stand by Me” in the song’s fading final seconds.  I’d probably enjoy it even more if it was a cover of “Stand by Me” the entire way (this being the second cover I’ve written about that references the song), but I’m still impressed that the band would pick a recent pop song that plays to their strengths rather than one just to pull in curious listeners.

More on Deer Tick: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Lost in the Supermarket” – The Afghan Whigs
(Words/music: Mick Jones and Joe Strummer, available on Burning London: The Clash Tribute, Epic 1999)

Greg Dulli loves cover songs, and few others can reinterpret all different types of songs as successfully as he can.  With all of his musical ventures, including the Twilight Singers and the Gutter Twins, Dulli takes classic songs and reinvents them into new works.  This isn’t a new concept – jazz musicians have long taken famous tunes and spun them into something entirely different (John Coltrane’s version of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music is an excellent example).  Dulli’s skill for taking a part of a song and building it into something entirely different (for example, using “Superstition” as a segue into the Afghan Whigs’ “Going to Town,” turning Bjork’s lush “Hyperballad” into the Twilight Singers’ fuzzed out love song, or morphing Jose Gonzalez’ fragile “Down the Line” into The Gutter Twins’ piano-fueled romp) reminds me of a mechanic restoring a car.  Like the mechanic, Dulli takes the parts that he’s interested in and builds the rest of the song around this one part, still using the song as an opportunity to craft unique arrangement rather than trying to recreate the original in totality.

On “Lost in the Supermarket,” Dulli starts with the original’s lyrics and melody and replaces much of the rest of the song.  He trades in the original’s nervous bounce for a slower wash of guitars and coo-ing background vocals.  The distinctive guitar riff is gone as well, replaced by the more iconic drum beat from “Train in Vain (Stand By Me).”  This sort of musical quilting sounds like a wreck on paper, but it plays like a true tribute to both songs (interestingly, both are Mick Jones songs).  At the slower and heavier pace, “Lost in the Supermarket” becomes a song about isolation rather than suburban boredom.  While the protagonist in the original throws out the “nobody seemed to notice me” line as a chip on his shoulder, Dulli sings it like a jilted lover – the kind of person whose heart breaks with little fanfare.  It still reads as a treatise on suburban life, as Dulli’s protagonist sounds out of touch with the supermarket culture around him, only this time it sounds less like a generation gap and more as a disconnect with the culture at large. 

The best bit comes in the outro when Dulli sings part of the first verse of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” followed by the chorus from “Train in Vain.”  It’s more substantial than just “tagging” the songs at the end, as the refrain from “Lost in the Supermarket” intersects these other songs.  It makes the idea of being “lost” sound like abandonment rather than betrayal, as Dulli’s protagonist responds with resolution to be brave (“no I won’t / be afraid”) despite being lost and alone.  Even with all of these disparate pieces in one song, the Afghan Whigs makes it all work together, as Dulli’s lifting voice pulls the arrangement to the next level as it plays out.  It’s an arrangement that simultaneously reinvents the song while still paying tribute to the original.

More on The Afghan Whigs: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm