"at night i wake up with the sheets soaking wet,
and a freight train running through the middle of my head.
only you can cool my desire.
i'm on fire."
my current love of springsteen covers, and my new love for this band, is bringing a tired smile to the end of a monday.
"i get up in the evening,
and i aint got nothing to say.
i come home in the morning,
i go to bed feeling the same way.
and i ain't nothing but tired,
man i'm just tired and bored with myself.
hey there baby,
i could use just a little help.
you cant start a fire,
you cant start a fire without a spark.
this guns for hire,
even if were just dancing in the dark."
dancing in the dark (live) ~ tegan & sara
dancing in the dark ~ pete yorn
dancing in the dark (live) ~ charlotte martin
dancing in the dark ~ ted leo & the pharmicists
"message keeps getting clearer,
radios on and i'm moving round the place.
i check myself out in the mirror,
i wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.
man i aint getting nowhere,
just sitting in a dump like this.
theres something happening somewhere baby,
i just know that there is."
it was the end of the summer after high school was over and i was overwhelmed with restlessness, and that feeling of not really knowing who i was anymore. everywhere i turned was a door, a pathway, an avenue, a choice. i worked at a record store where i spent most of my paychecks on the same product i put out on the floor everyday. i kept in contact with a few of my friends from school, but most of us had already started wavering and fleeing the scene; most of the doorways led in different directions for the lot of us.
next i knew fall had arrived. i was wasting time at a community college, taking classes more for the interest they sparked then any curriculum, or plan. it was the first time in my young life i hadn't given school my all. i really did not know what i wanted to do, and i had no desire to pretend that i did. i was lonely, and i was more than a little lost. music was the only place i felt myself in, and i flipped the vinyl over, listening for the tell-tale scratch of the needle hitting the surface, while i filled stacks of composition books with something i thought could one day be a book.
a not-really-a-friend called one night. we had an acting class together and had exchanged numbers to work on a scene that we'd been assigned. i don't remember what it was, only that it required bags of groceries and a knife. she asked me to come see a movie, a late night showing of rocky horror. it was another spin of 'some great reward' and ink stains on my fingertips, or actually leaving my room. the night was warm, unseasonable for october, and the still air made me itch to go somewhere, anywhere. i had my ticket in my hand, pressed tightly in the palm of my hand, when i saw him. what i remember most was his eyes, wide and questioning, as if he was asking me something already.
we seemed so different. he was from money, from a set of parents that were still together, and he exuded this confidence when he told me about all the plans he had for his life. he wrote screenplays, good ones, even now i half-expect to see his name scroll by in the credits when i sit in a dark theatre. he lived for music in the same way i did, it was like fuel he would say, and i'd say it was more like oxygen. our tastes was as different as our upbringing was, but we both were willing to hear the others favorites. bruce springsteen was one of his, not mine.
he told me one afternoon, as we drove down pacific coast highway, that i had to listen to the best song ever. he played 'dancing in the dark', the original of course, and sang along with the kind of passion and abandon that most of us save for when we are alone. i knew for him it was the best song ever, and that he felt it, every single word and phrase. watching him like that made me smile.
it was never my best song ever, and i'm sure it never will be. but i think i appreciate it in a way that i wouldn't have had i never known him. it will forever remind me of that time in my life, and the boy who for a few months shared his music, his writing, and exploits in the backseat with me. i'd say he was my first boyfriend, but i'm not sure he ever was. we were too different, and we never quite fit into each other's lives. but we shared a certain restlessness, and we exchanged a great deal of our desires with each other. we spent a few weeks worth of evenings dancing in the dark.
"suddenly i stop,
but i know it's too late;
i'm lost in a forest,
all alone.
the girl was never there.
it's always the same,
i'm running towards nothing,
again and again and again."
eerie and ethereal songs, what are some of your favorites?
i love moments when you stumble upon something musical that you missed somehow before, but can now listen to now, and enjoy. i never knew about the axis of justice concert series, or any of the musicians involved in it until late last night.
this song has always been a favorite of mine from u2. ever and always one of those songs that I have turned up the volume to, especially in my car, and sung along. there has been times when the lyrics made tears fall down my face as there is something deep in the emotional make-up of this song, in the spirit of it, and the lyrics, that just shake me up.
it reminds me of chance, of hope, and of that ever-present gypsy soul that lives within me that often wants to just get in the car and drive until i run out of gas. find myself both lost and found in the world somewhere, cellphones and email out of reach, left with nothing but the people i love and the earth and the shared experiences between touch, conversation, and living.
jolene (cover) ~ the white stripes
jolene (live, video) ~ dolly parton
two other covers of jolene sent by two keen friends (thank you, bianca & imaginary_lines)
jolene ~ mindy smith
jolene ~ queenadreena
"he talks about you in his sleep,
and there's nothing i can do to keep from crying,
when he calls your name."
growing up i spent quite a lot of time with my grandparents, especially during the summer months. my aunt lived with them, and i remember spending hours in her room playing her 8-track tapes, one of her prize possessions. she was a big fan of country music, most especially the female singers, her favorites being loretta lynn, patsy cline, and dolly parton. during one summer in particular, when i was about six or seven years old, i made a list of my own best of's out of her collection. the songs were all about infidelity, which at the time i did not understand. i think it was more about the strength and conviction in the women singing, the fighting back for something they wanted, that i was attracted to.
of course, as i grew up i would have argued that all that strength and conviction that i admired so much as a young girl could have been better utilized fighting for something more than a cheating partner. that said, i do think that those women had some kind of infectious fire to them that made those songs live on somewhere in the back of my mind.
i love the white stripes take on jolene. It is more desperate than dolly's original, and the fire that burns in this one is that unmistakeable sound of breaking hearts and begging to not lose someone you know is leaving despite the pleas. the last line, please don't take him, even though you can almost feels like a final defeat, especially in the abrupt way that the song is just over.
pete yorn (live, san diego)
suspicious minds ~ pete yorn
suspicious minds ~ elvis
"we're caught in a trap,
i cant walk out,
because i love you too much baby.
why cant you see,
what youre doing to me,
when you dont believe a word i say?"
i am pretty sure i've loved every version of this song i've ever heard, but this may be one of my most favorite covers of it - at least tonight.
and this one, glen hansard and mic christopher busking on the streets where he later filmed once, it just makes me smile.
keep art alive; art by hedi slimane"i don't believe that anybody,
feels the way i do,
about you now."
wonderwall (live) ~ ryan adams
wonderwall (live in atlanta, video) ~ ryan adams
wonderwall (live) ~ cat power
wonderwall (elements of noise remix) ~ cat power
this was meant to be saturday's song of the day, but glancing at the clock i see it is after midnight, sunday. though sundays are my favorite days, my little bit of magic in a week; and i feel full of magic tonight. this song, it resonates in me, on so many levels, and in so many spoken (and unspoken) ways.
i am not much for oasis, i never have been, but this song just slays me. i suppose it is the gifts of the covers of this song that made me fall for it - my favorites are up there - ryan (of course), who made me pause and realize that this song is fucking incredible. the video, caught live in atlanta, is amazing - even with the crowd singing along (perhaps that joining in makes it even more amazing).
and chan marshall (cat power) who has this way of taking any song, twisting it up and turning it around, and making it her own - lush and luscious, gorgeous. and the remix of it is quite keen, i must say.
don't get me wrong ~ the pretenders
don't get me wrong ~ lily allen (cover)
"don't get me wrong,
if i'm looking kind of dazzled;
i see neon lights,
whenever you walk by."
"do i dazzle you?" ~ e. cullen
"frequently." ~ b. swan
i love synchronicity. those moments when you are experiencing something so strongly, or taking something in deeply, and suddenly you are surrounded by reminders, coincidences, and mirrored reflections of your inner make-up.
i love cover songs. the new dip into something familiar, and how you can hear the unique something that is added when a new voice adds something to an existing piece of art. in a way it is similar to writing with a certain song, or collection of songs, playing in the background. you take from it, you sew it into the lines and phrases, and you create a new representation.
all of it, is it not just shared experiences? the collective unconscious taking a turn in the playground of energy, lyrical refrain, and magic - who could not fall for that?
"you write such pretty words,
but life's no storybook.
love's an excuse to get hurt.
and to hurt.
do you like to hurt?
i do, i do.
then hurt me,
then hurt me,
then hurt me..."
feeling rather prickly tonight, emotions still too raw for normal reactions to take place. i keep trying to re-trace my steps from when i felt this low, and what paths i took to get myself back up. its been years and years, and i remember that it was a lot of false starts and stops before i ever could stand steady and feel alright. i wish it was all something a few pretty words could fix, but it just isn't.
umbrella (rhianna cover) ~ manic street preachers
"you have my heart,
and we'll never be worlds apart.
may be in magazines,
but you'll still be my star.
baby, cause in the dark,
you can't see shiny cars,
ant that's when you need me there,
with you i'll always share.
when the sun shines,
we'll shine together.
told you i'll be here forever.
said i'll always be your friend,
took an oath,
i'll stick it out 'till the end.
now that it's raining more than ever,
know that we'll still have each other.
you can stand under my umbrella,
you can stand umder my umbrella."
day just slips by and my emotions are sinking, though i am trying to pull myself up by invisible strings and songs played up high. stumbled upon this cover and find it rather addictive. perhaps if i keep playing it, louder and louder, i'll feel better (or my ears will ring so much i will not care about anything else).
"long ago,
and oh so far away,
i fell in love with you,
before the second show.
your guitar,
it sounds so sweet and clear,
but you're not really there,
it's just the radio."
the original of this song, by the carpenters, lives in my own childhood history alongside roberta flack's killing me softly. something about the pair of them, and a pre-adolescent girl's fancy for musicians and far off places (her wandering gypsy nature captured in a song, and soulful eyes). suppose i had a grasp on the sadness of love, the loneliness when much of your heart is tied up in songs, and yet there is something lasting - far beyond promises, lies, trysts in the backseats of cars, first kisses, make ups and break ups. the songs still play, they hold on longer, they do not forget the initial blushes and dreams. they do not warm you in the cold hours of the middle of the night, but there is something they bring, something to count on, something to trust.
keep art alive; art by esao andrews
