Cover to Cover Introduction and first post Here Comes the Night, Them and David Bowie's cover

Debra    Nicki    David

A long time ago - probably one family Christmas gathering - my sister Debra and me started listing songs we knew that had been covered by another band. We then voted on what we thought was the best recording.

Some time later we invited Nicki - my other sister to join in.

Since then we've taken it in turn posting original songs and a cover of the song to a WhatsApp chat we set up.
We then write a commentary and a judgement about each song.
It's been fun but more importantly it's brought us all a little closer to each other. We all live like - almost everyone else I know - very busy and hectic lives. Our web of connection had become quite thin. Playing wordle almost daily has been fun, but the c2c project has given us an opportunity to go deeper.

Anyway after one commentary and judgement I posted back in October 2022, both my sisters complimented me on the post. So I've decided to post my commentaries to this blog.

I'm not claiming any special gift, talent or skill in writing these commentaries. I'm just listening and commenting on what strikes me about the songs. Sometimes it's the lead voice, sometimes the band, or the lyric or the pace of the song. 

I'm gonna post them here cause it's a fun thing to do. It's also a way of celebrating my two wonderful sisters who have supported me through a very rough patch recently. I'm also trying to draw more traffic to the blog - aren't we all - and I want to post more regularly to this blog.
Like the WhatsApp chat with my sisters, I'm gonna post the original and cover song from YouTube, and then write my commentary.
I'm going to attach the first commentary here to this introductory post.
I hope you find them enjoyable. Feel free to comment.
Here's Van Morrison and Them

Here's David Bowie from Pinups.

24 October 2022 Here Comes the Night: Them, feat; Van Morrison Cover: 

David Bowie

I love this song. Brilliant to listen to it again.  Only really knew the Bowie recording till today.

Lyrically such an interesting, intelligent and insightful lyric. I love the singer's self conscious, jealous and genuinely human response to seeing his ex-girlfriend with another boy.

I enjoy and dislike  elements of both recordings.

I love Bowie’s vocal. I always have issues with Morrison’s voice. But it’s rough and fragile perhaps it really works here.

I don’t like Bowie’s over use of the saxophone. Morrison’s band is tight as Bowie’s is.

I love the refrain/verse. ‘Here comes the night.’ I love the way it’s repeated so many times but totally unrelated to the main lyric.

I think the song is so upbeat. Contrasts strongly with the subject of the song. I don’t enjoy that aspect of the song.

Difficult to judge. The original recording has a default advantage over the cover, I think. The cover version has to surpass the original, often written by or closely associated with the performer. The cover has to own the song. Make it their own. It has to be more than just a copy of the original.
We have to be aware of the associations we bring to the song and separate ourselves from them.

But here Bowie isn't better than Them despite the better recording equipment and probably better instruments. Bowie isn't trying to do a better performance than the original. He's trying to pay a tribute to them. There's a rawness and an energy to the original, that the cover just doesn't possess. That may have something to do with its release date of 1965, when rock n roll was still quite young. By the time we come to Bowie's1973 cover, the music industry had quietened down, become more settled.

My vote goes to Them.