The Art of the Steal: When Covers Feel Original

I often say that being a performer is about toeing many lines. Loud and soft, fast and slow, ups and downs. However, there’s one line that’s particularly important. It’s what brings magic to music. Get it right, and you’ll put on a great show.

It’s the balance between the known, and the unknown.

Whenever you’re playing live music, it’s necessary to experiment such that you’re expanding your skill set and repertoire, without venturing too far from familiar waters and drown. You must keep things interesting for the audience, and yourself, without going off the rails. Essentially: the trick is to be engaging, without mucking it up.

Perfect? No, but almost.

This all sounds very intellectual, but what does it actually mean for my gigs? Well, it usually manifests itself as playing a song that I’ve played a hundred times before with a new twist (a different rhythm, a new tempo etc.), or playing a song that I’ve never performed before, but with which I’m quite familiar (songs I’ve heard in the supermarket, but never actually sang live). Usually, the former is slightly safer than the latter, but if a member of the audience requests a popular song and I’m feeling confident, I’ll give it a go. This can be risky, however.

One of the easy ways you can get caught out as a gigging musician is if you’re overly zealous with audience requests. Sometimes, you’ll get a little too ambitious and commit to trying a song that’s either very difficult to get right (e.g. Bohemian Rhapsody), or that you don’t know well enough to make recognisable (one of those myriad pop songs with a super-simple chorus, but a surprisingly tricky verse. I’m looking at you Sabrina Carpenter…).

There is, after all, a clear line between breathing new life into a popular song, and making it so new (bad) that nobody can tell what they’re listening to. It’s a constant battle to mix the new with the old, distant and familiar, the improvised and the rehearsed.  

A good musician will know what to keep and what to change, and more importantly, how to change it. One of my favourite ways to mix things up a little when I perform is to play a song with an ultra-recognisable chorus (something like Wonderwall, or Murder on the Dancefloor), but to change the feel of the verse slightly to keep people guessing right until the chorus starts. If this works out, by the time the first few words of the chorus start, everyone will be singing along to the song they all know and love.

I’ve stolen (as any musician worth their salt knows how to do) this technique from terrific performers like Ryan Adams and Colin Hay (the latter of Men at Work fame). They are masters of taking another artists’ song, and ‘making it their own’ as the cliché goes. It’s something that I do try to do in my own performances, and I’m always pleased when I’m approached after a gig by a kind audience member who says I’ve managed to do it once or twice.

Indeed, Ryan Adam’s version of ‘Wonderwall’ is, I think, the epitome of a ‘statement’ cover song. It’s so good that, once you hear it, all but the most ardent fan of the original will forget they’ve heard any other version. The song, while of course retaining the same lyrics and melody (mostly), somehow manages to transport you to somewhere else entirely. Oasis’ original is anthemic, simple, and primal: that’s why pretty much everyone from everywhere has heard it, and can quite confidently belt it out at any given moment (it’s cliché, but I can tell you from experience, it is the ultimate floor-filler). Ryan Adam’s offering is altogether different, though. It’s delicate and complex. His darkly echoed, sensitive vocals and rhythm guitar beckons you to listen closer. The classic melody is tapered: familiar enough, but changed such that ownership of the song appears to shift. It is a singular, utterly haunting cover song. It is everything the original is not. Better? Well, it’s up to the listener.

This is everything I aim to do when I perform. A lofty goal, certainly, and one which is in many ways unobtainable. Nevertheless, a performer must always seek to ‘do’ something with his art, whether he means to express (be heard), or to affect (be felt).

All this is a rather round-about way of saying that I like to change the songs I sing. This means that, not only should it sound at least a little different from the original record, it should also sound different each time I sing it. So, whether you hear me sing ‘Wonderwall’ for the first time or the fiftieth, in Edinburgh City Centre or a wedding venue somewhere, it should sound unique.

That’s what live music is all about.

Finlay