Waiting for a Sign from You
When it comes to music-geek jousting, one sure sign of weakness is admiring a song without realizing that in fact it’s a cover of another song. (When caught out, you must fall to your knees, lower your head, and quietly wait for death.) And yet uncovering previously unimagined sources must also be one of the sweetest music-geek pleasures there is. And it keeps on giving. I don’t remember how exactly I learned that Joan Jett didn’t write “I Love Rock and Roll,” but it was only within the past year or so. Still have never heard the original, though, by some people called the Arrows.
Anyway, the other day I was poking around online & discovered Slapp Happy, a German band from the early 1970s, & discovered as well that they’re the originators of a little song called “Blue Flower,” which Mazzy Star covered to great effect on their She Hangs Brightly album. This may solve the mystery of why “Blue Flower” is the only Mazzy Star song I’ve ever cared about or been able to remember.
That said, I still prefer the Mazzy Star version by a longshot – it goes down much smoother, and this just seems like the kind of song that should go down smooth. On the Slapp Happy original, the clipcloppy rhythms and showy sound-plinks seem designed to announce, This isn’t just some conventional rock & roll song, you know. Except that it is, & not that there’s anything wrong with that.
(Buy Sort of ... Slapp Happy here and She Hangs Brightly here.)
Anyway, the other day I was poking around online & discovered Slapp Happy, a German band from the early 1970s, & discovered as well that they’re the originators of a little song called “Blue Flower,” which Mazzy Star covered to great effect on their She Hangs Brightly album. This may solve the mystery of why “Blue Flower” is the only Mazzy Star song I’ve ever cared about or been able to remember.
That said, I still prefer the Mazzy Star version by a longshot – it goes down much smoother, and this just seems like the kind of song that should go down smooth. On the Slapp Happy original, the clipcloppy rhythms and showy sound-plinks seem designed to announce, This isn’t just some conventional rock & roll song, you know. Except that it is, & not that there’s anything wrong with that.
- Slapp Happy, “Blue Flower”
- Mazzy Star, “Blue Flower”
(Buy Sort of ... Slapp Happy here and She Hangs Brightly here.)
posted by DW | 27.5.06
2 Comments:
Big recent discovery/disappointment for me was that The Nerves were "Hanging on the Telephone" before Blondie got there. I only qualify it as a disappointment because Parallel Lines is such a powerhouse album (personal desert island disc) and I am already looking back all doe-eyed and nostalgic at my naive belief that Debs and crew did it all themselves.
Two very interesting discoveries from a decade ago involve Barry Manilow. His box set (go ahead, laugh, ye of such hipster cred!) includes the original versions of "Mandy" ("Brandy" by Richard English--staggeringly different and not just in name) and "Could It Be Magic." Not only is the latter a chord-for-chord ripoff (unintentional, Barry claims) of Chopin's Prelude No. 20, but Barry and a woman whose name escapes me recorded an earlier version of the song under the artist name Featherbed circa 1970, and it presages disco(-lite) by a good six or seven years. NB: both tracks are on that box set.
the pale saints version of blue flower off of In Ribbons is also very worth checking out
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