[Round 2: Cover One – Week 2]
“For Emily Wherever I May Find Her”by John Frusciante
Original Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
“Under the Milky Way”by Kill Hannah
Original Artist: The Church
Original Artist: Simon and Garfunkel
Original Artist: The Church
John F- Barebones cover. Sounds better than the original. Not a big fan of either though. Too weak of a song.
Kill Hannah – Not familiar with her, but I’ve been on a new wave binge the past week or so and this fit right in. I really like the original and this was a nice clean cover, a little different, less mopey and brighter.
JF- Excellent as always. Love both versions of the song. Thanks for making the exception Ed. Just close your eyes while listening, then you don’t have to watch the video.
KH – Never heard of her, know the song well and think this is an excellent cover. I think both covers are wins!
One of the artists I picked for the cover song challenge also did a rendition of this song. I almost chose it. would have been interesting to hear side by side.
its here is you wish to give a listen, but only after you listen to the challenge song and write your review. (Dont want to sway your thoughts)
https://youtu.be/RTfu5nrkoS4
Pretty good – nice voice & well sung. I’ll still go with Grant, I feel he wrings more from the lyrics.
John Frusciante – For Emily Wherever I May Find Her
A seemingly earnest performance of a song that’s all about the vocalizations of a lyrical painting. I could do without the “haaaand” growl, but not too shabby on the whole.
Kill Hannah – Under the Milky Way
I really struggled with this one. It’s cover that’s certainly faithful to the original and not bad in its own right, but I find myself feeling disappointed. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard the original so many times – I really looked for something more than updated production with lackluster vocals. What was the motivation here?
I like Grant Lee Phillips’ thoughtful take: https://youtu.be/4e2H4GwoO68
“for Emily …” / J. Frusciante. Well, I barely remembered the original of this song, and I had to look up John Frusciante (though the foam asterisk the crowd wields in the video should have given me a clue). It’s a good cover of a lovely song, and I like the dissonant note of his growl in the middle, which I’m assuming wasn’t in the original.
“Under the Milky Way” / Kill Hannah. I don’t know KH, but I did remember the original of this, though I haven’t heard it in decades; the beguiling melody of the “under the milky way tonight” has always stuck with me. 80s gloss, with lots of textures, from the ringing acoustic guitar and spacily tootling keys to the breathy, slightly raspy vocal, subtle low harmony and roaring guitar at the end. Good stuff, and easily preserves what haunted me about the original.
John Frusciante –Loved it; Great performance; the growl; the passion; well done
Hopefully better late than never…
John Frusciante- Definitely not what I expected from JF given his typical balls-out (what we refer to in our house as the ‘we don’t care about spelling’ approach). But I liked this. Strong and passionate, I think it benefits from his distance from the original.
Kill Hannah- I love the original which has three hallmarks to me: the perfectly sweet 12 string acoustic which is the star of the song, the dreamy, lazy delivery of the dreamy lyrics and the resounding middle bagpipe section (it may not actually be a bagpipe but I like to think it so). This version seems to try for a faithful cover which may be the struggle. The guitar sounds good but the vocal is too energized and overtly longing and I miss the surprising grace of the middle. All in all, it a bad version but I’ll take the Church.
JF – OK, who is this guy? Seriously. No idea. Was this an open mic night? If this was a bar performer I would take my drink outside.
KH – I think the reason we talked about doing covers was to hear different interpretations, including straight reads, of songs. That said, there is a list of songs in my head that should not be covered. This would be on that list. Not that this is offensive, but I can only hear the original in my head and think of what I could be listening to.