Fuddland
I’ve been listening to a lot of Johnny Cash lately — his American III & IV albums, which are fantastic. I won’t pretend to have always loved Johnny Cash, or that I know which are considered his best records; I’ve only recently got these two records, and the only other recording I have of his is Wanderer, on the end of U2’s Zooropa, but I’m really enjoying these two albums and will check out his earlier stuff at some point.
The mix of originals and covers works well, although I don’t think anyone should ever try and cover Bridge Over Troubled Water, no matter who you are. It’s such a grandious song and Art Garfunkel’s original vocals are pitched so well, you have one of two options if you want to be different from the original:
Go completely overboard with your vocals — the route that would chosen by the Mariah Careys and Craig Davids of this world, and hence of no interest to me whatsoever.
Be terribly serious and sombre, trying to make the song your own — but we know you didn’t write it, which distracts from the sincerity.
Having said that, Cash pulls off The Mercy Seat and Desperado as if they were written by and about him — it’s really only Bridge Over Troubled Water that I think is “uncoverable”. Anyway, what I really want to talk about is his version of Danny Boy, and specifically the fact that I’d never noticed before that the lyric is:
If I am dead, as dead I well may be.
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying.
It’s “…well may be”? I was sure that couldn’t be right — surely it should be “…may well be”? I convinced myself that what had happened was: he’d sung it incorrectly, yet there was something about this take that meant it had to be the one on the final cut. He’d re-recorded it, I thought, to get the line right, but something just didn’t sound right no matter what he tried. I listened to it a few more times, trying to hear what it was that made this take special — it’s an interesting exercise. Try it yourself: take a song you think is great, put it on, and pinpoint the exact thing that the song can’t do without. I’m not talking about the drum beat or the guitar solo — I mean the way the singer sings a certain word, or the pause he leaves between words. As I was writing this, the example I thought of is Nightswimming — the way Michael Stipe sings the word “deserves” in the first line: it’s inimitable.
I checked out the lyrics of course, and it appears they were originally written the way Cash sings them. Never doubt a legend: even if they’re wrong, they’re right.
Comments
brown | 2004 / 02 / 04 – 11:32
There’s an excellent cover of Hurt on American IV, but not a patch on the NIN original ;)
Gordon | 2004 / 02 / 04 – 12:38
Yeah I listened to these before Xmas but they are so poignant and painful at times that I haven’t gotten up the courage to do so again.
Mind you, a dark room, a bottle of wine…
David | 2004 / 02 / 04 – 12:53
Re #1: I’ve listened to both in succession, and I honestly can’t decide which one I prefer — I heard Cash’s first though.
Re #2: I know what you mean: his version of The Beatles’ In My Life — stunning. The way Cash sings it, it’s hard to believe that song was written by someone not even twenty-five.
Jann | 2004 / 02 / 04 – 14:10
I’ve always done that with Bob Marley tunes. Probably because of all the people I’ve heard do ‘No woman, no cry’ or ‘Redemption Song’ with a pissed-up chorus line and an old guitar.
Obviously, no-one ever manages to capture the nuances that Marley injects into almost every syllable.
There are a couple of live versions where he sort of makes a mistake with the lyrics, which always sound a bit wrong when I hear the studio versions.
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