covered inglory #5: bonnie prince billy & tortoise - 'thunder road'

will oldham's collaborative covers album with chicago's beard-stroking raised-eyebrow post-rock jazz-boffins tortoise came in for some stick on its release in 2006, especially for their cover of bruce springsteen's 'thunder road'.

detractors complained that oldham's strangled, ghostly vocal performance, and tortoise's decision to replace the original's surging piano rolls with sterile guitar lines leeched all the passion and urgency out of the song. round gms' house, we reckon that's the only interesting way they could have taken it. the original 'thunder road' wasn't a straight-up, Born In the USA-style anthem - it gestured towards that, but the voice-and-piano arrangement reined in the more bombastic tendencies, while springsteen's lyrics never made it clear whether the speaker believed in his dreams of automotive freedom and redemption in "the promised land", or whether he's consciously "praying in vain", already aware that "we ain't that young any more".

as springsteen says in his storytellers performance, 'thunder road' is an invitation. the speaker tries to play up the attractions of his romantic vision, but the downsides and the risks keep edging in, and "the ride it ain't free". oldham and tortoise recognise that it's this dramatic tension that makes the song great. instead of replicating the same tension, they introduce new dimensions. like nick cave's reading of 'by the time i get to phoenix', their version has a bleakly ironic and fatalistic edge. the delivery points up the hollowness of springsteen's orbison fantasies, playing up the sinister qualities of lines like "i just can't face myself alone ... you know just what i'm here for", while still making those fantasies feel like the singer's "one last chance to make it real", if only the "scared" addressee would "show a little faith".

doing a springsteen cover is today's passport to hype machine plays and pitchfork approval. his songs have characters, drama, big hooks and an air of authenticity. but of the hundreds released since 2000, this feels like the only completely successful re-imagining. to illustrate the point, included below is badly drawn boy's version - faithful, reverent, pretty - but this is the one that really leeches the spirit out of the original. whose offer would you take? eh? EH? etc.

bonnie 'prince' billy & tortoise - 'thunder road' (from the brave and the bold)

bruce springsteen - 'the story of thunder road' (live on vh-1 storytellers, original on born to run)

badly drawn boy - 'thunder road' (buy some badly drawn boy)

bruce springsteen - 'thunder road' (live 1976)

previously on covered inglory

on Anon.

morning, blog readers! occasionally i can be bothered to have coherent thoughts about pop music and write them out in complete sentences. but a lot of the time i leave that to commenters, who are always welcome.

one of the most deft and devastating i've received came from 'anonymous' (seriously?), and concerned singing sensation will oldham's duet with scout niblett, 'kiss'. i repost it in case anybody missed out:

"Im surprised to hear Will Oldham singing with Scout Niblett who doesnt seem to have much talent for music or singing. Her annoying voice struggles desperately to sound like Chan Marshall but just doesnt seem to get there. Its also a joke that Scouts trying to mime her way into this southern bell indie lead in America when its so obvious shes just English. Will Oldham is also spreading his overly used talents in too many pointless places at once, which gets very boring after a while. I pass big time on the Scout, Oldham duet thing. A desperate plea to be heard with no regards for all the migraines it will cause."

i mention this because will and scout have made a video for said song, which i think is very good. you should watch it, but maybe with your fingers in your ears if you've been migrained by scout before. i wonder what anonymous will think. the floor is open.



incidentally, put 'anonymous commenter' into the wu-tang name generator and you get 'well-liked assman'. is this you?

addendum

yup, forgot one.

charlie louvin (feat. will oldham) - 'knoxville girl' (from Charlie Louvin)

Buy Charlie Louvin

Will Oldham antics round-up

Once upon a time, keeping up with multiple-monikered beard-wearing folk behemoth Will Oldham meant paying over the odds for 7”s at the record fair, occasionally checking the Royal Stable, and hoping he’d put out another Lost Blues comp to make things simpler. But this is 2007, and Will's on a mission to become known as the alt-country Lil' Wayne, so you need Google Reader and shit. I bet you’re glad GMS is here to make things easier though?

Will dances on a tractor to Kanye West! But you already knew about that.

Will covers Mariah Carey! This is "bad music", I'm told.

Will collaborates with Mark Lanegan, covering Neil Young on the Soulsavers record! This scores highly in Top Trumps. No sign of Greg Dulli, though.

Soulsavers (feat. Mark Lanegan & Will Oldham) - 'Through My Sails' (Neil Young cover)

Will (who's previously covered 'Ignition') acts alongside R Kelly in chapter 15 of Trapped In The Closet!

We already know Will’s been bothering Jeffrey Lewis.

Will also played a great hometown gig in 1999. Get it at Captain’s Dead!

Will sings in French with Soy un Caballo!

Will repaid the favour to Valgeir Siggurdson, who produced The Letting Go, by providing vocals on one of his songs!

Evolution Of Waters-Valgeir Sigurdsson & Bonnie Prince Billy

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Will chats awkwardly about Cuba with Nation Of Ulysses / Make Up / Weird War legend Ian Svenonius!

Will acts some more, in Old Joy, which has a Yo La Tengo soundtrack! Did anybody see this? It looks a bit “low key”: no vampires or explosions.

Will duets with Scout Niblett! This is probably the pick of the bunch. Apparently they did this live on Will’s last British tour, which I wish I’d seen.

Scout Niblett (feat. Will Oldham) - 'Kiss'

Any I've missed?

"like the king of a certain musical genre"

looks like this came out about six months ago, which implies that my youtube game is mad weak. still, worth shouting about:

jeffrey lewis - 'will oldham williamsburg horror'



will oldham really needs to make a hastily-put-together youtube response, maybe in his pants by a modest swimming pool somewhere in florida while sporting a black eye, like what cam'ron did with 50 cent. perhaps that neil hamburger chap could help him out.

failing that, here he is with a threatening live version of 'a sucker's evening', the song referenced in jeffrey's video:

bonnie prince billy - 'a sucker's evening' (live, from summer in the southeast)

the old chap in the video is tuli kupferburg of the fugs. if you need educating about the fugs, jeff's your man:

jeffrey lewis - 'the history of punk rock on the lower east side'




More fun:

Buy Jeffrey and Jack Lewis City and Eastern Songs
Jeff's home page
Jeff's myspace
Buy Summer in the Southeast