venta

It's Friday, and it's a bit after 3 o'clock[*]. It's time to go underneath the covers (with the lights out).

I always recommend listening to a cover version without knowing what or who it is, so click on the link before reading ahead...

Link to cover version expired

That was The Cure, covering Foxy Lady, originally by Jimi Hendrix[*].

When a song is hugely famous, covering it is pretty difficult: you run the risk that you're just going to sound like a poor imitation. If the original artist is famed as a master of the relevant instrument, you're pretty much going to suffer by the comparison.

Here we can see the Cure demonstrating one approach - drop the famous riff, and don't bother with half the lyrics. In particular, miss out the title. Render the song barely recognisable. How long did it take you to spot what it was?

This Cure cover sounds a bit half-arsed, which I think is a shame as it could have been really good. I like the tinny, spiky guitar as a contrast to the hugely fat sound of the original. Sadly, the abominable mess made of the line about being "tired of wasting all my precious time" relegates this pretty much to the bin as a finished concept :(

[*] To the pedants: I think it was actually by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, technically.

If you missed this morning's cover version, I do recommend checking it out, too :) It can be yours for just 79p, too, and it's for a good cause. You can download it from lots of places.