Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Cover This

So I recently re- visited the Garden State soundtrack with my brother in the car on the way to a gig. I'd say that in the years since the last time I listened to the whole thing straight through, my appreciation for the score of a movie has increased significantly. Additionally, my familiarity with the meaning of "covering" a song has also changed drastically. 

This soundtrack features Iron & Wine "covering" The Postal Service's Such Great Heights.  The reason for the quotes is that there is a marked difference between playing a song the way it sounds (covering it), and playing a song the way it sounds to you. That difference is something I'm not sure I'd have ever had so close an attachment to if it hadn't been for the last two years of playing other people's songs on a nightly basis the way they sound in my head. I think that would be best identified as a reproduction. Samuel Beam (of Iron & Wine) reproduced Such Great Heights in such a way that caused me to question, and very carefully consider the way songs sound.  I always wondered why his version came out so soon after the original, but now I think I get it.  What does a song really sound like?  Is it something you hear in your head or could it be something you hear in your heart?  

I like to picture Samuel Beam playing the guitar at his kitchen table eating Cheerio's and listening to college radio trying to write a song.  As he sits, the DJ announces a new track from The Postal Service called Such Great Heights.  The song plays and he looks up from the notebook he's scribbling in, drops his spoon into the cereal, splashes milk on himself and sits with his jaw agape at what he's hearing.  The song playing on the radio is the song he has been sitting at his kitchen table trying to write.  

Fanciful though that recreation may be, I have to imagine it was something similar.  And whatever the case is, that's how I like to picture it.  The Iron & Wine version couldn't really be any more different from the original, but still manages to stay true to the feel and intended meaning of the song (whatever that may be).  Samuel Beam heard it and immediately knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.  He had been waiting his whole life for an opportunity to put together a song that would make him feel complete, and then found it while eating Cheerio's and playing the guitar.  I like to imagine how that must have made Ben Gibbard feel. Someone feeling so strongly about a song you have written, that they just absolutely need to put their own spin on it.  It's crazy.

I got to thinking also about what songs I feel so strongly about.  Lately is most assuredly a song that I feel that kind of kinship with.  Use Somebody, too.  Those are both songs that I remember hearing for the first time, and wishing I had written.  I felt like it was on the tip of my tongue until it was reverberating in my ears.  And my heart.  And my soul.

That's the way it all looks to me.

Peace Love and Vocal Harmonies



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