The second single from songwriter Carole King‘s solo breakout Tapestry, “So Far Away” was not the hit “It’s Too Late” was but was her second Top 15 hit in a row. It’s stood the test of time a little bit better than some of her later hits as it’s her fourth most covered song, among those that she recorded before anyone else.
LA garage/indie rockers FIDLAR have had a fondness for covers ever since they first released an album – we first wrote about a cover of theirs back in 2013. Earlier this year they tackled another folkie ish hit from the smooth ’70s when they took on Jackson Browne so Carole King isn’t as far outside their wheelhouse as one might expect.
Their new cover of “So Far Away” is not garage rock at all but rather a very bedroom-y sounding indie folk thing. And it’s not really a full cover either, but just the chorus repeated over and over again, which is definitely a choice.
The video is full of tour footage and the song very clearly resonates with their life on the road in 2014. The song itself features a tired, almost pained vocal, some closely mic’ed guitars and an overall feel that conjures up the heyday of American lo-fi indie music in the 1990s. The vocals and guitar all sound like they were recorded unprofessionally in someone’s room somewhere, impromptu, and then it was put out without much thought as to making it sound more professional. (Think Sparklehorse, Smog, that kind of thing.)
Aesthetically it’s the polar opposite of California pop music in the 1970s, including Carole King, the Mellow Mafia and the whole Laurel Canyon scene. The decision to cut out most of the lyrics makes the song about actual physical distance rather than emotional distance and it’s interesting to hear such a strange transposition. The brevity probably works in its favor.
