i'm having bouts of self-mutilation in my head again. most days i feel this lack of energy does me good only because it keeps me from destroying this body. the images come in succession when i'm trying to focus on writing, and mostly when i'm trying to find rest. it keeps me from sleeping. it's strange how one can be so restless and yet feel so weak. the restlessness sustains me with an illusion of control, while i feel weak when it finally becomes a kind of physical anxiety, as if i'm squirming for air in a tiny room. awful, this failure of not doing. the frustration arrives when i see how i've wasted so many days, months of my life, accomplishing nothing important.
you see, it's hard to love yourself when you've been in conflict with it for a while. self, you keep searching for different ways to resolve concerns, even opt for temporary solutions, to find another way to live; anything but the ways myself has suggested. see, here. i have paralyzed myself. settling for the things i have and still managing to lose them isn't a favorable streak. and i know it will not work; what i want isn't always what i need. self, you might want to do yourself a favor while you still have the time. already i dread losing you to contempt. get out, and while you're at it, why don't you do some real talking?
Back when Boeing 747 was the largest aircraft, a Swedish band composed a song titled 747. Its lyrics had nothing to do with aeroplanes.
In the late '90s, the song was number 1 in the NU107 radio countdown for weeks. Though the song debuted in English, I always preferred the Swedish version over the English one because of a slight difference in the latter's sound arrangement. Read the English translation of the lyrics below.
747
Silence, like a whisper
Maybe tomorrow it won't be here
So tomorrow we could teach them
Some new styles
You're such a killer
So shoot me down again
It won't hurt when the killing is done by a friend
Silence, like a whisper
So this is all we need
The fully air conditioned sound of speed
A violent whisper
And this time it's for real
So this day I made plans for us to leave
Silence, why won't you listen?
Maybe it's just me
But sometimes it's impossible to breathe
A violent whisper
Maybe this time it won't heal
Maybe this time it will bleed until I'm free
To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.
Well, fine. That would still depend on your taste. It's one thing to sing a karaoke version of a great song, and it's an entirely different thing for musicians to make a refreshing version without listeners thinking 1) they're creatively drained, 2) they have absolutely zero talent, 3) and they're just riding on a legendary musician's popularity.
After listening to these covers, I hope you agree they did justice to the original hits. And here is where I have to say kudos to artists who still manage to serve us something unexpected in the golden age of formulaic pop and unprecedented piracy.
DISCLAIMER: I'm a bit of a new wave junkie, so pardon me if some of the songs here may be a decade older than you. Listen and enjoy. :)
1) The Ghost In You
The Psychedelic Furs to Duncan Sheik
Listen to the original song here
The Ghost In You is one of my favorite new wave tracks so I never thought any cover would be good enough; it always had to be The Psychedelic Furs for me. Written by Richard and Tim Butler, the song earned spots in the U.S. and U.K. pop charts in 1984. By the '90s, the Counting Crows covered the song in grungy acoustic fashion for the film Clueless (1995) which brought Alicia Silverstone, then an unknown teenage actress, international success. Almost a decade later, singer/producer Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray made a version with arrangement and vocals heavily enhanced by I-don't-know-what-you-call-em (technology that makes that buzzing sound) for the comedy film 50 First Dates (2004) which starred Adam Sandler as the love-struck marine biologist in desperate pursuit of Drew Barrymore, an art teacher inflicted with anterograde amnesia (yes, I had to Google that). Another Ghost In You rendition was recorded by a lad named Matthew Puckett (good lord, I wouldn't have heard this version if I didn't do all this surfing!); his haunting vocals and raw acoustic guitar matched the theme for the North American TV horror series Being Human (2011).
Needless to say, a lot of covers have been made and it's only a matter of time until somebody finally records a version that throws old and new listeners off their seats. And yes, I believe the best version was recorded by Duncan Sheik (and I have to say that Puckett guy gets 2nd place for his eerie cover).
Released in 2009, The Ghost In You is the last track in the album Whisper House. Though the album did not receive as much acclaim as other Sheik albums, the cover is most definitely an unexpected gem out of 10 tracks. This song is quiet as a windy summer afternoon by a still lake, a pond, (or a stagnant creek, will you?). It's the kind of sound you hear when you look out the classroom window to daydream about that someone. Hear the whispering vocals, the piano’s rhythm delicate as glass crystals, and the guitar's gentle acoustic strums as it stirs lives "inside you", whilst "the time moves..." as if you knew what Duncan Sheik meant by "ghosts" and why they won't fade.
