This morning, Cosmin, my band colleague (bass player) sent me some links to a few YouTube videos, asking me something like “Uuh?What do you say?!” All the videos were oldies, like for ex Wonderful life from Black. Man, this song is old and used to be on heavy rotation here about 17-18 years ago (?) when our TV stations didn’t have too much to play so they played the same old stuff over and over again. I remember from that period Cars with Drive. Man, I liked that stuff back then, but it stuck so deep into my brain that I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy it again. Also Stevie Wonder’s I just called to say I love you! Damn, and it was an other one, Stevie B, Because I love you. This one I had it on tape…
Now, listening to this song that Cosmin showed to me on YouTube, I asked him why does he show it to me? Well, how about we play it? What?!! I started to laugh! He then showed me some Al Bano and Romina Power, that made me feel suspicious, he is a Iron Maiden fan, for God’s sake! Man, wake up!
(Obtuse mind reflection:)Wonderful life seemed to me so anti-guitar that I couldn’t even imagine us playing it on stage. Where would you put an electric guitar in there? But because he says he would love us to consider it, I looked some more on YouTube and there it was: I found a cover, Hyperchild playing Wonderful life!
Man, I really enjoyed that one, it comes closer to rock, love metal, I think, HIM style music…
So I say, OK, we could do this . No solo, no keyboard, well…no problem!
The very interesting that I was thinking about is the fact that it is the same dusty song (please excuse my appreciation of it, I like it but to me it is dusty) and just changing the way of expression, you get a totally new song, with a totally new life… Adding a guitar in there opens the minds of guitar centered guys (like me for ex, I put myself on the top of the list because before listening the cover I said no, but after listening the guitar version I said, hell, yeah, why not?!)
Now I also think of something else: since a few days we try to cover Bon Jovi’s Living on a prayer which is a great song. Just that it doesn’t quite work on us. Now I think I know why: we try too much to match the original and we will never match Jon Bon Jovi’s way of singing or the energy the record transmits. What we should do instead is to find a better way of expressing us over the same song, to represent us and respect the original song also. Like that cover of Wonderful life for example…
So, just look at the same think from an other angle. Should not be difficult…right?
Here’s the cover:
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