“Hand in My Pocket” is the second single from Alanis Morissette‘s breakout album, Jagged Little Pill, as well as her first ever Canadian #1 song. As much as this album was big in the US, it was even bigger in her native Canada where it went double Diamond and produced four #1 songs as well as a #2. For some reason “Hand in My Pocket” wasn’t released as a single in the US so it had less of an impact, though it still received enough airplay to chart well.
Still, it makes sense that it would be a little less popular of a cover than the biggest songs in the US from Jagged Little Pill and that a Canadian band like July Talk would be a little more likely to perform it. July Talk have been around for a little over a decade with a fair amount of success, due to their famous live performances.They were invited by CBC to cover the song in honour (with a u) of the upcoming Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys.) They were a little nervous of doing it because of how big Alanis and this album were in Canada at the time.
Gone is the drum machine and chiming guitar. In fact, gone are most of the instruments of the original. Instead it’s just a piano and the band’s two singers Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay Goldstein. Neither singer attempts to copy Alanis’ inimitable delivery, and they slow the pace down, fully committing to the song’s nature as a ballad. They take turns singing the lines, occasionally taking lines in the chorus together.
This stark piano performance is a far cry from most of the band’s repertoire but they wanted to commit to a different version of the song, which makes sense when you’re covering a song that was this big in your country. It’s a stately, pretty cover of one of the less iconic songs from Alanis’ biggest album.
