Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.
You won’t know this one. Well, not unless you read our Good Better Best on The La’s ‘There She Goes‘, where Adam Mason gifted the best to the version from Stephen Jones, aka Babybird. (Or should that be babybird? Citation needed.) This isn’t a dig at taste anyone’s taste or due diligence in capturing all end every cover version in the world, more around the blink and you missed it nature of the release. Covid still very much the story of the day, it snuck out in June of 2021, likely a pointer to how Jones had himself spent lockdown. There were limited hard copies available, on CD, as a single disc, a double, containing a trio of additional revisions, and a special edition, with individually hand finished covers. These all sold out aeons ago, with none of these self-released items accessible even through Discogs. But, luckily for you, if so inclined, you can grab the downloads over on Bandcamp. And they are free!
Sure, but just because it’s free, that doesn’t mean it’s any good, right? To be fair, that more often confirms the opposite. However, against the often truth in that truism, not only is it very good but also merits this Cover Classics tip of the hat. First of all, this is no slavish facsimile of the originals. Far from it. Indeed, one might be tempted to suggest the singer may not even have been that familiar with each and every of them, with one song not even being what it is billed as. Secondly, by providing all the accompaniment himself, in what, frankly, sounds a fairly rudimentary set-up, the arrangements are quirky at best, downright odd on occasion. Plus, he has neither the range nor the timbre to bless these songs with anything other than his God-given limitations. (I’m not selling this, am I?) Finally, by and large the selection strays away from the usual subset of Dylan, Young and Beatles, by having a bunch of songs from the more recent pop charts, as well as several by one of his clear favorite bands. His album, his choices, right? Having said, there are a couple from Dylan and one by Young, even if one of the Dylans is described more as a cover of a cover.
His hit aside, Jones has never been idle, pumping out new material at a rate that would put even current period Van Morrison to shame. Mostly self-released, most are even CDRs rather than CDs, and one suspects he burns them to order, as each purchase is made. Whilst there has, on occasions, been Babybird, the band, this is not a regular occurrence. However, I note that he/they have been announced as the support, for this fall’s tour by Echobelly. Whether these will be solo sets or by the more recent trio is not made clear.
So then, the album. I will include the baker’s dozen of tracks from the single CD as well as the additional 3, it all starting off with ‘Atmosphere’, the first of 3 originally by his beloved Joy Division. Those familiar with it will know it as a relatively impenetrable slab of industrial post-punk. A classic of its subset genre, it has seldom attracted covers, discounting the many copies. Jones slows it into a summery lope, crooning the words with no small deliberation. The drums offer a workmanlike heft, reminiscent of 1980’s Manchester, pounding rain, therefore, but the rest of the song could otherwise be one of the more hymnal arrangements of Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark. Hang on, I hear you say, Joy Division? It was New Order. But, no, not strictly so, as it was written and recorded by the band whilst Ian Curtis was still alive, if not released until after his suicide. By then the band had become New Order and it was issued as their first single under the name, even if the basic track was retained from the original sessions. This is all, it feels, fully recognised by Jones, and, as it progresses, the gradually multi-tracked vocals become increasingly choral, with fauxchestral strings extending the sense of eulogy. A cracking opener.
‘I Want You’ is credited as up next, but it becomes swiftly apparent it isn’t, if from the same album. Instead it is a stoned sounding ‘Just Like A Woman’, the delivery and diction almost deadpan, certainly as it stands. A little emotion does creep in, but it comes across as a description from an illicit investigation, a peephole view of the woman in question. Synths swirl with a pharmaceutical psychedelia, at one with the amphetamines of the lyric, if not the pearls. Straight into ‘Wrecking Ball’, the Miley Cyrus one, and the surprise couldn’t be greater. Running at a lick that feels tad too fast, if set electronically, with Jones then unable to slow it, it isn’t the most striking rendition, but nonetheless captures a sense of the narrator having being broken by the experience.
‘There She Goes’ we know from Adam, with little to add to his praise, the whole a clumsy and cack-handed celebration of wherever she has actually gone, and in which direction. Jones takes his guitar to the front now, for the second Dylan, ‘Don’t Think Twice’. This is credited also to John Martyn, presumably to give context to the echoey sound of what may even be echoplex. The most conventional interpretation here, his raggedy way with the scattergun release of words affects an unusual charm. Safer territory, perhaps, for ‘Isolation’, a second Joy Division. He has attached some sort of muffler to his voice, which distorts either effectively or accidentally, but the drum machine is the real star of this one. And, before you gat snarky, why shouldn’t it be? Someone still has to programme it!
I wish I had thought of the version of ‘In My Room’ for the recent Brian Wilson In Memoriam piece, up next. not necessarily because of the brilliance of it, as it veers surprisingly close to the original, the key dynamic being to strip the rendition of any much warmth. The click track percussion is, again, just a little fast, and Jones sings near devoid of emotion, possibly mimicking the pharmaceutically enhanced condition of the author. Whether that pharma was illicit or prescribed, by that point it mattered little to the marooned Beach Boy. The dial remains on woozy for the Doors’ ‘Indian Summer’. So much so that I couldn’t place it, with the greatest clue coming from the sitar like guitar, a sole retention from the original. Sure, Jones is no Morrison, especially in for one of his most addled fever-dream deliveries, but there is enough character to more than make up for that.
I Got You, Babe is a weird one. Unused to hearing the Sonny and Cher hit other than as a duet, I wonder, double tracking aside, whether this was deliberate. Possibly straying into inapropriate territory, with nothing anywhere to suggest Jones has any issues with mental health, I get a bizarre notion that this is the song as sung by someone with nobody to share his life with. What was that film about multiple personalities, ‘Split’, with James McAvoy, something like that? Well, this song feels sung by, and to, the legions in his head. Too much? Sorry, enjoy perhaps, instead, the majestic use of what sound like a very old accordion. Neil Young’s ‘Long May You Run’ may just be the sort of song to change the subject, mind, being a gorgeous version, with any hint of Californian (or Canadian, for that matter) expunged totally, all totally and entirely Estuary, as the diction of the Thames delta seems now to be called. It’s a slow gambol, gamble even and, as all but the drums leave his vocal alone and isolated, before the shimmery chimes return. It’s all a bit like those over-exposed slo-mo sequences film makers use to represent our simpler youth, when the endless days were all sunny.
Back to Mancs again, so sun neither needed or available, with a further brace of nihilistic glories; New Order’s ‘Ceremony’ and Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The first is tinted with and presented in a frame of 6o’s psychedelia. If someone said it was an old hit by Dantalian’s Chariot, you’d believe them, if also wondering how they came by a cheap drum machine in 1966. By contrast. ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ sounds nothing like any the myriad versions out there, with even the majestic chorus all but discarded, only a note or two remaining. It is the least successful of the four related tracks, but is thankfully short. I suspect it was meant to be a statement, a riposte to the popularity of the song from those who preferred to polish it up. I suspect you’ll fast forward. By contrast, ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ is then an absolute beaut, one of the best here. Skeletally bare of structure outwith a repeated piano progression and a synthscaped backwash, some echo on the vocal. Job done.
That’s the album proper, disc one. But, as the extra second disc comes automatically as an extension of the digital release, there probably ought to be a longer gap before Britney’s ‘Everytime’. It’s slower than the original, at least as it starts, and has a much messier mix, endearingly so, that only adding to the irony between the lyrics and the media perceptions of the singer, back when she released it. If I am allowed to say, I am, or was, unfamiliar with the original, belatedly discovering it is quite a song, but, on reflection, I prefer this battered ornament of a version. We then get two bites at ‘Get Lucky’, with alternate backing tracks. The first near eschews the beat and rhythms that make the song what it is, but, as the words scatter out, they are near superfluous. The keyboards provide an elegant bed for Jones to intone a world weary sense of detachment, the guitar then gilding that lily. It is utterly fabulous, and the reprise, which has a sly bossa nova sway inbuilt, courtesy some subdues percussion, is rendered a little superfluous. Unless, of course, you play it first.
This is maybe the point of this release, to dip into and out, rather than play in a continuum, track by track, in order. Having said, if maudlin and mawkish is your bag, you could do worse. I did, for one, and several times. And, more to the point, will again.
Covers tracklisting:
- Atmosphere (Joy Division cover)
- I Want You (but actually Just Like a Woman) (Bob Dylan cover)
- Wrecking Ball (Miley Cyrus cover)
- There She Goes (The La’s cover)
- Don’t Think Twice (Bob Dylan cover)
- Isolation (Joy Divison cover)
- In My Room (Beach Boys cover)
- Indian Summer (Doors cover)
- I Got You, Babe (Sonny & Cher cover)
- Long May You Run (Stills-Young Band cover)
- Ceremony (New Order cover)
- Love Will Tear You Apart (Joy Division cover)
- Pale Blue Eyes (Velvet Underground cover)
- Everytime (Britney Spears cover)
- Get Lucky (Daft Punk cover)
- Get Lucky (alternate) (Daft Punk cover)
