(mp3) 30 years after the great but melodramatically overwrought “Thunder Road”, someone finally did a really tremendous, totally different but utterly un-ironic cover of a Bruce Springsteen song. This version is by Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy. It has the atmospheric buildup of tension, and the trademark solo riff… but with a huge minor key shift and the musical arrangement built to put emphasis on the sense of alienation the lyrics convey, not the tearing-out-of-town overpowering rhythm-n-sax of the original music. It’s like it came from a different planet. Like Bruce Springsteen popped a fistful of downers and started sadly singing about getting out of a loser town on Mars instead of New Jersey.
This is what cover songs are supposed to be: a take on the original so surprising and great in its own right that you go back and re-listen to an original that maybe seemed tired, played-out or even cheesy and take it in to find something new.
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ysamlan posted this
