While driving home, I heard NPR’s song of the day, which was featuring the interesting and surprising Mates of States’ take on the Tom Waits/ Kathleen Brennan collaboration, ‘Long Way Home’.
The song comes from Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner’s ‘Crushes, their 2010 album which includes covers of 10 artists from Tom Waits, Nick Cave, The Mars Volta, Belle & Sebastian to Death Cab for Cutie and Daniel Johnston.
The bumping, nostalgic, throw-everything-in-the-gutter, ambiguously dark, and heartbreaking ballad becomes this sunny and bright anthem with explosive electric guitars, glowing voices blooming from a series of yeah yeah yeah repeated over and over.
Gone the raucous sad voice, it is replaced by an uplifting female vocal blasting with an exhilarant joy.
Norah Jones did cover that same song but despite some additional arrangements, it was still what people expect from a cover.
Here it is a complete different story. A complete make over of the song? No, it’s way beyond a make over, nothing is recognizable, it’s a new song, a complete new meaning and intention.
This made me think of what exactly a cover is, can a cover like this one be still called… a cover? Or is it something else?
But there are many ways to go home, and Mates of States took the longest and brightest way and there is nothing wrong with that.
Mates of State’s version
Tom Waits’ version