Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.
Is there a ghastlier song than “Send In the Clowns”? The epitome of musical thea-ter (dahling), a go-to for any and every luvvy guesting on a TV show, invited then to sing us a song. Unspeakably vile, it is a song that must surely have some redeeming feature, to be drawn out of its saccharine turgidity. I mean, the bible of cover songs, Second Hand Songs, lists five and a half hundred iterations of the damned song, so surely there must be a “5 Good Covers” amongst them? Surely? I fear the title of this piece reveals the sickly truth.
Let’s get the details out the way. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say: “‘Send In the Clowns’ is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles Of a Summer Night. It is a ballad from Act Two, in which the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life.” Two shocks there. First: I thought it came out a lot longer ago than 1973. Second: Bergman? It seems impossible to imagine the dour Swede having much truck with such lightweight frippery. But that is merely my view, with untold experts subsequently citing the song’s magnificence. It took a while for it to transcend the stage musical, not broaching the Billboard charts until Judy Collins brought it to #36 in 1975, and to #19 in 1977.
Frank Sinatra, in the meantime, had released it on his comeback album, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, setting the song along the road to it becoming a jazz standard. Sure, Sinatra tackles it with characteristic brio, and, vocally, it can’t faulted. It is just the wretched source material. Jazz, of course, in the context of standard does not generally equate with anything exciting or innovative, or indeed anything much to do with what I call jazz, it smacking more of big band MOR, easy listening for the easily pleased. Sure, otherwise reliable artists have given it a go, as an instrumental, but, even shorn of the pompously execrable lyrics, most come up short, shackled by the limitations of the melody. (Honorable exception is country maverick, Tyler Childers (here), who found a pearl within the snail shell.)
Disclaimer: I didn’t listen to every version. I couldn’t, on health grounds, and would challenge anyone of a normal disposition so to do. But I did take a look at the list, in no small detail, cherry picking names of those who might be able to step outside of expectations. Indeed, in particular, I had high hopes for Pete Burns and for Stan Ridgway. Burns, the flamboyant frontman of Dead and Alive, must be able, I thought, to buff it up into something idiosyncratic and memorable. Wrong. And Ridgway, the Wall of Voodoo man, turning then to oddball narrative songs, he’d give it some grit. Also wrong. So that’s my 5 gone for a burton.
Who’s left?
- The Grace Jones version is good.
- The Bryan Ferry cover is better.
- The Chet Baker and Van Morrison cover is best.
Grace Jones – Send In The Clowns (Glynis Johns cover)
Before Grace Jones had fully established her “diva from another planet” vocal identity, she was known more for being a distinctive and striking model. In 1977 she embarked on a musical career, gaining a contract with Island Records. Her first record, Portfolio, was rather more mainstream disco than her subsequent more outré releases, but it contains “Send In The Clowns,” whipped up into a glossy Studio 54 production.
OK, it is a little cheesier than later fare, but it offered some promise, if principally through Jones’s very thoroughly untutored singing style. The song may remain landlocked within the confines of the notes available, but it raises a smile, even at over 7 minutes, and doesn’t overstay any welcome. Plus, is that a snatch of “Stand By Me” in the opening bars, as the tempo picks up? The bass playing, by the way, comes from a Wilbur Bascomb, and is, especially toward the end, nothing if not ear-catching.
Bryan Ferry – Send In The Clowns (Glynis Johns cover)
I am one of those who thinks that Ferry is one of the finest interpreters of other people’s songs we have, especially of Bob Dylan. Always having a soft spot for older material, vaudeville and “jazz standard” territory, this comes, I guess, into that territory. It stems from 2014’s Avonmore, his 15th solo album. (For someone often said to rely cover versions on to prop up his own failing muse, I would simply say 15 solo albums and 8 by Roxy Music, even if there were a fair number of covers spread across that array. And it was one of only two covers on Avonmore, at that.)
Liberty is taken with the melody, with the arrangement the tight and layered polish typical of Ferry’s work this century, sophistipop of a high standard, unsurprising given the array of many his most relied upon session men across the album. It is Marcus Miller playing bass here, with Johnny Marr on guitar duties.
Chet Baker feat. Van Morrison – Send In The Clowns (Glynis Johns cover)
I am almost shamefaced to reveal that the best cover seems almost to devour the bulk of my diatribe against this song, possibly making my words seem like my next meal. I mean, what could be more mainstream than Chet Baker playing and Van Morrison singing a staple of the songbook each, in their way, have been steeped in, as inspiration or play sheet. But bear with me, I would also cite that both are so against the mainstream, as to have slipstreams of their own, sizeable enough as to cause confusion as to which way the river is actually flowing.
By 1986 Chet Baker was in poor shape, and two years from his tragic demise. Largely resident in Europe and addicted to heroin, he took work where he could find it. Elvis Costello, a longterm fan, had hired him to play the trumpet on his song “Shipbuilding,” helping get Baker back into a degree of circulation. This culminated with a show at London’s fabled Ronnie Scott’s, a jazz club in Soho, featuring Baker and his trio of Riccardo Del Fra on bass and Michel Graillier on piano. Baker played trumpet and sang, introducing a special guest for the closing track. That was Morrison and “Send In the Clowns” was the song, captured live for a disc entitled both Nightbird and Live At Ronnie Scott’s, dependent on the release and the label, it being licensed a number of times.
A deliciously retrained version, there is no razzmatazz, it barely capturing the notes required. Morrison is mixed low, needing the listener to concentrate on his voice. Meanwhile, the piano and bass provide the bulk of the accompaniment, with Baker dropping in some luscious lines, ahead taking a countermelody to somewhere wondrous. It smacks very much of Morrison’s own late ’80s oeuvre, and could easily have been slipped into, or lifted from, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart or Poetic Champions Compose. Imagine if that had been the first version of the song, and quite how different a trajectory it might have taken, as a result? But it wasn’t, but, next time someone like me tells you how dire a song it is, just play them this version.
Baker and Morrison: that was stunning!!!