(That's an in-joke, by the way - the title of another Damon and Naomi album). However, here's an even sadder song: Low covering the execrable Bee Gees' song, I Started A Joke to stunning effect. There's also a faster version on their recent DVD which is, weirdly, even more melancholy.
Low are a great band. Utterly sad and intense, and two-thirds Mormon, one-third recovering heroin-addicted Mormon, yet so utterly ROCK. I've loved them for years, but only saw them once, in the swety upstairs room of a rubbish pub in Wolverhampton. The place was so packed that once rooted to a spot, you stayed there (stuck to the floor). Acquiring a beer meant passing a £5 note backwards. Eventually it reached the bar, and a glass would begin the return journey, reaching you with probably two-thirds of the liquid remaining. The non-Mormon in the band would sometimes furtively swig from a can, braving the glares from his bandmates, and between them they produced the loudest, loveliest noise I've ever heard.
Low aren't the only band to cover I Started A Joke: here's Faith No More doing a rather fine version!
12 comments:
I thought you might like the Low version as it strips all the glamour and allure out of the original. You aren't a big fan of glamour are you Voley?
If someone put Low's version on a loop and told me it would only stop if I pulled out one of my own fingernails I am not sure I would last as far as the middle eight on the first play of the song before tearing my nail out with my teeth.
It is not sensitive and delicate, it is an exercise in making a song as white and as straight and as soulless and as, to be blunt, mormon as possible. It is anti-pop. It is anti-music. It is horrible. Take it away! Take it away!
Funny how the Faith No More video encapsulates how pop music can help you escape the doledrum life can sometimes be, while the Low version wants to rub your nose in the shit of your misery. That's Christians for you I suppose.
Stop listening to Low and go out and buy some Sly & The Family Stone.
If you like Low and if you don't know this already ex-bassist Zak Sally made a record that came out on Sub-Pop this year, I believe. It's worth checking out, I like it quite a bit. It's called Fear of Song.
Hello again. Sorry if I went a bit far there. That Christmas song they did was not bad actually.
Remember I love you, and that I try and peel you off low-fi because it is worse for your health than cigarettes and I worry about you.
Benjy, don't you ever just enjoy or feel the need for a melancholy song? Oh, and the Bee Gees are rather white themselves! I have plenty of Sly and the Family Stone, by the way. And lots of Northern Soul and other music by non-white people.
Dan - thanks for the tip: I'd missed that one.
If by melancholy you mean sad and thoughtful then yes - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's i see a darkness album is sublime for example. If by melancholy you just mean depressing ie Low then no. No I don't.
I guess it is a whole empathy vs sympathy thing eh?
Or what about Sinatra's 'In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning'?
Mmmm melancholy chic.
I just fundamentally disagree that Low are depressing.
No you are right. Low themselves are not depressing. But this cover version is. Like when Coldplay or Travis or whoever it was covered Britney the motive seems to be one of 'legitimisation'. It is saying "look, strip away the glossy production and the backing vocals and this is a good song. We (real musicians) can rescue this song for you" I find that enormously patronising.
Compare that with the Faith No More version which revels in the song both lyrically and musically. A cover version must respect the original song.
I sing along to the Faith No More version but not the Low. It just doesn't connect with me at all. This is a song from the heart not the head. Low's cerebral attempt to 'art' it up spoils the broth.
We are never, ever, going to come to a compromise on this one are we?
Shall we try and get Tindersticks to cover it so we can agree that their version is definitive perhaps?
Got all excited then imagining I’d hit upon a spooky coincidence. I thought you were writing about The Low Anthem – I recently heard The Low Anthem on Radcliffe and Maconie on Radio 2 and was terribly modern and downloaded their LP. Anyway, it’s not them is it? It’s slowcore (I understand).
I don’t want to make trouble, Plash, but Ben twittered stuff about you and Low thinking you wouldn’t find out… Okay, I do want to make trouble.
Hi Kim. I do like The Low Anthem, and thanks for giving what I like a name - not a lot of people know that!
I'll check out Ben's Twittering - he's an accomplished wind-up merchant. I just can't be bothered: life's stressful enough and I'm just not an attack-vole… and I'm happy to let other opinions co-exist with mine!
So, sorry - no chance to form a circle chanting 'scrap, scrap, scrap'!
Kim, you naughty woman: it's an apology!
Bother! Yes, sorry. I should have said, 'It's an apology...'
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