Will Oldham has a lot of songs. Whether released under his own name, or under his various Palace monikers or, mostly, as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Oldham has released over 40 albums over the last 35 years, and most of those albums contain original material. But if he can be said to have a signature song, it’s “I See a Darkness,” if only because, unlike all his other songs, this one was covered by Johnny Cash. Whether or not it’s solely due to Johnny Cash, it’s far and away Oldham’s most covered song, and seemingly his most streamed.
British singer-guitarist Anna Calvi has joined Substack, like seemingly everyone else on the planet. As part of her Substack, she recruited American singer Perfume Genius for this new cover of Oldham’s most famous song. As Calvi herself notes, there aren’t that many songs about friendship, so maybe that’s why this song gets more attention than the rest of Oldham’s rather large oeuvre.
The original arrangement is stark, stately and almost hushed. Calvi begins her cover with electronic percussion and a keyboard. Though there are backing vocals in the original, a big change here is that Calvi and Perfume Genius sometimes sing this as a duet, as if it’s two friends singing to each other. Calvi ups the pace, though not nearly as much as Oldham did when he re-recorded it in 2012. Her famous, distinct guitar playing punctuates the arrangement, always threatening to take over but never quite doing so. The overall arrangement swings back and forth from density to more bare-bones, though it is mostly more elaborate than the original.
It’s a long way from Cash’s version, or the original, or Oldham’s own second version and a long way from the Americana realm that Oldham mostly operates in. But despite the drastic change in arrangement Calvi and Perfume Genius capture the beauty of the original song and the combination of warmth and fear that has made it Oldham’s biggest song.
