If I get one more e-mail from some pompous asshole taking umbrage that I said no more covers I’m going to explode.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t you get it?\u00c2\u00a0 IT’S A BABY BOOMER\/CLASSIC ACT CHEAP SHOT!<\/p>\n
You used to be somebody.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe you’ve still got people who’ll come to see you live.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can’t get arrested with your new music.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably because the muse dried up.<\/p>\n
Yup, you’re just not as hungry as you used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 But, you’d like to pay for your kids’ college education, you want to feel like you still count.\u00c2\u00a0 But your last album stiffed.\u00c2\u00a0 You blamed it on the label, on radio. You’re still living in the seventies, like they still count.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas today it’s every man for himself.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re your own cottage industry, it all comes down to YOU!<\/p>\n
But you don’t want to believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to believe some semblance of the old system remains intact. You can’t believe they don’t want to hear your lame ass ditties.\u00c2\u00a0 But you listen to NPR\/KCRW, you don’t realize that Clear Channel features 22 minutes of commercials an hour, that overall listenership is declining, that listening to over the air radio is akin to watching over the air television, it’s a vast wasteland inhabited by losers, who can’t afford satellite radio, who can’t afford iPod hookups.<\/p>\n
And those majors you decry, this is all they know.\u00c2\u00a0 These radio stations and their TV partners.\u00c2\u00a0 But, with five hundred channels and YouTube, your appearance on Jay Leno delivers no spike in sales.\u00c2\u00a0 You used to be triple platinum, now you can’t even go gold, you can’t come close.\u00c2\u00a0 So you’re looking for insurance.\u00c2\u00a0 You decide to release a covers record.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the last refuge of the artistically bankrupt.<\/p>\n
You should be working with Rick Rubin.\u00c2\u00a0 Another producer with independent ears.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s willing to tell you your new material sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can’t handle that, the same way you couldn’t handle your ex sticking up to you.\u00c2\u00a0 You divorced her.\u00c2\u00a0 But the alimony added to your running expenses, forcing you to put product into the pipeline.\u00c2\u00a0 Which no one cares about, which the majors won’t even give you an advance for.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying covers are a bad thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Where would Joe Cocker and Bonnie Raitt be?<\/p>\n
But Joe’s take on "With A Little Help From My Friends" was radically different from the original.\u00c2\u00a0 And Bonnie is famous for resurrecting the obscure, she doesn’t go for the cheap shot.\u00c2\u00a0 Except maybe for "Runaway" back in ’77.\u00c2\u00a0 Which got some airplay but didn’t save her career.\u00c2\u00a0 It was only when she wrote a heartfelt original, the title tune of "Nick Of Time", that the audience was truly interested.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that she required originals.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you ever heard the title track from her follow-up, "Luck Of The Draw"?\u00c2\u00a0 You can FEEL both the heartache and hope!<\/p>\n
And here’s where I give you instruction.\u00c2\u00a0 From a dead man.\u00c2\u00a0 Who never really made it.\u00c2\u00a0 Whose legend has not grown since his passing, but has only contracted.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s a star in my pantheon.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll still be playing HIS covers long after JT’s lame renditions of famous tracks evaporate from my memory bank.<\/p>\n
I’m speaking, of course, of Michael Hedges.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to hear his cover of Peter Gabriel’s "Come Talk To Me".\u00c2\u00a0 He covered everything from "I’m Into Something Good" to "Holiday" to "If I Needed Someone".\u00c2\u00a0 But the absolute best is "Like A Rolling Stone". The supposedly uncoverable Bob Dylan classic.\u00c2\u00a0 Hedges wrings new meaning from the song, he slows it down and makes it three dimensional.\u00c2\u00a0 He implores us, he asks us…HOW DOES IT FEEL?\u00c2\u00a0 To be on your own.\u00c2\u00a0 Like a complete unknown.\u00c2\u00a0 Surfing the Net, trying to figure out what to listen to.\u00c2\u00a0 The artists are not the only ones who are lost, the consumers are confused too.\u00c2\u00a0 Mightily.<\/p>\n
Why did I search on "Michael Hedges" in the original Napster?\u00c2\u00a0 Because of an album of originals, entitled "Watching My Life Go By".\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t leave home without that cassette.\u00c2\u00a0 I found live takes of all its songs.\u00c2\u00a0 And a cornucopia of covers.<\/p>\n
Once upon a time you dressed so fine<\/span> You were a star once.\u00c2\u00a0 And it lasted longer than you ever dreamed.\u00c2\u00a0 You didn’t have to give up and work in your father’s business.\u00c2\u00a0 You put out albums and people bought them, you got royalties, people wanted to see you play live.\u00c2\u00a0 But suddenly, it all disappeared.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to blame somebody.\u00c2\u00a0 Shawn Fanning. Bill Clinton.\u00c2\u00a0 The Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 You want things to be the way they used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 You still want to be school president.\u00c2\u00a0 But everybody graduated and went his separate way.\u00c2\u00a0 Into nooks and crannies where you can’t even FIND THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 How can this be?\u00c2\u00a0 How can no one care about your new music any longer? They’re lazy.\u00c2\u00a0 No, they’re busy.\u00c2\u00a0 With lives that are more important than the lame platitudes you’ve been spouting for so long. You no longer need a bodyguard.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes you go to the supermarket and nobody even bothers you, comes up to tell you how much they love your music.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re only better than your audience in your own mind.\u00c2\u00a0 They grew up, you didn’t.<\/p>\n You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely<\/span> That’s the school of rock.\u00c2\u00a0 Where you can get high and fuck everything in sight and get paid for it.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, even you can’t party all night.\u00c2\u00a0 Rehab finally took, you can’t snort cocaine any longer.\u00c2\u00a0 If David Crosby can lose everything, so can you.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’ve got no idea how to live in the new world, on the street of dreams known as the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 You liked it better when it was controlled.\u00c2\u00a0 When you had a permanent pass.\u00c2\u00a0 But now your laminate is worthless, meaningless.<\/p>\n You said you’d never compromise, never whore yourself out to the man.\u00c2\u00a0 But James Taylor premiered his album on QVC.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about your music, but the money it can generate.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll sell yourself to the highest bidder.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re everything you used to rail against, you’ve become a caricature of yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 At least your great records are frozen in time. That’s the TMZ\/PerezHilton crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 Equating fame with talent.\u00c2\u00a0 In a world where anybody can be famous, where you can be forgotten overnight and be working as a waiter and waitress, ridiculed in the process.<\/p>\n When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose<\/span><\/p>\n That’s how it used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d try anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Run on instinct.\u00c2\u00a0 You gave up the straight life for the circus. You weren’t protecting anything, you didn’t own anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Like today’s new acts.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why they can get traction and you can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they NEED IT!\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not playing safe.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not worrying what’s in the past, only the future.<\/p>\n You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.<\/span><\/p>\n You used to prosecute bootleggers, now you’d be thrilled if everybody stole your album, if anybody CARED!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like you don’t even exist.\u00c2\u00a0 Your only way out is to reveal your truth, which you used to do so well.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’ve been lying to yourself for years, telling yourself you still count, that your new music is good.\u00c2\u00a0 But nobody’s buying it.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re delusional.<\/p>\n The two YouTube clips referenced below are not as good as the MP3 in my iTunes Library.\u00c2\u00a0 But if I post it online, with its high note flourishes, some lawyer representing the publisher will slap\u00c2\u00a0 me with a writ instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 So, these YouTube clips will have to suffice.<\/p>\n Michael Hedges’ rendition resembles the original in lyrics only.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to do this kind of cover, I might care.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to innovate.<\/p>\n But when Michael Hedges was doing this eleven years ago, you were still hoping your original opus would get added to MTV, at least VH1.\u00c2\u00a0 You employed song doctors, you lost weight for the video. Cutting covers now is your last shot.\u00c2\u00a0 A cheap one at that.<\/p>\n
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?<\/span>
People’d call, say, ‘Beware doll, you’re bound to fall’<\/span>
You thought they were all kiddin’ you<\/span><\/p>\n
How does it feel<\/span>
How does it feel<\/span>
To be without a home<\/span>
Like a complete unknown<\/span>
Like a rolling stone?<\/span><\/p>\n
But you know you only used to get juiced in it<\/span>
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street<\/span>
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it<\/span>
You said you’d never compromise<\/span>
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize<\/span>
He’s not selling any alibis<\/span>
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes<\/span>
And ask him do you want to make a deal?<\/span><\/p>\n
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people<\/span>
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made<\/span><\/p>\n\n