“Green Door,” a #1 hit in the US and UK in 1956, is now 70 years old so it’s no surprise if you don’t know it. (I grew up listening to oldies radio and I barely remember the original.) If you do know it, you likely know it from Shakin’ Stevens, which was also somehow a UK #1 during that brief period where rockabilly was popular again. Or, if you’re like me, you know it from The Cramps‘ cover. Both Stevens’ cover and The Cramps’ cover are pretty faithful, if filtered through their respective revivalist miens.
English singer-songwriter Barns Courtney has been putting out music for about 10 years. Not only was he not born when Shakin’ Stevens and The Cramps covered “Green Door,” his parents might not even have met yet. He is reaching back with this one.
His cover owes nothing to either of the famous covers of this song. He begins with looped strings and what sounds like fingerstyle acoustic guitar. Courtney’s voice is raspy and slightly slurred. When the chorus comes in, stomping percussion and a choir enter as Courtney’s voice gets desperate. Partway through the chorus a whole band comes in, upping the intensity. He and his band vamp the coda, completely transforming the song.
Whereas the original and the famous covers imply that there is fun happening behind the door—music, liquor, gambling, etc—and the singer is being excluded for being square, too young or a cop, Courtney’s delivery suggests that he might die if he doesn’t get inside. It’s a really cool, and very modern, cover of a song most a once very popular song most of us forgot existed.
Thanks for this. To be fair, 1981 may have been a long time ago (45 years IS a long time ago) but the 1956 version, the original, was by Jim Lowe and the High Fives, who probably weren’t high at all. Shakin’ Stevens’ version, which was a hit in its own right, came out in 1981. He would have remembered the original, since he was 8 years old in 1956. There are oldies and there are performers who are oldies.